Astroworld

Chicagoans refused to be silenced ... a march!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/opedne_kevin_go_080320_chicagoans_refuse_to.htm

Wow Morgana as tough as these aspects indicate from an astrological point of view, an astrologer can't give much but the truth these days. It's everywhere, no matter how we feel or what we want, we cannot deny what is happening out in the world. Someone said to me today, "believe nothing you hear, it's all a diversion for the masses. The immigration issue is a diversion so we will more readily accept a tracking chip put into our body. He said watch and see if something doesn't happen making McCain the person to handle the crisis and bingo he will be president, it's all a diversion." Bear Stearns is only the beginning, the FBI is supposedly investigating 17 other banks, a huge bank in Switzerland has failed and more and more money and resources are being drained around the world.

The Cardinal T-square between the Sun/Mars/Pluto would indicate something is being set in motion this week that has very long term repercussions. I do see that the Sun is conjunct the 4th house, but does so from the 3rd. Do you think our communications will be ugly Morgana? Communications with each other, with the government, with other governments, between candidates? It just doesn't look good.

Good article Morgana and a very honest one. There will eventually be an end to this but who knows what that will look like and who knows if we can grab the energy and make something good from it.

That's the truth,Morgana!
No seeds, or bunnies here! It snowed again last night! The car is still out for repairs.......
Pluto is conjunct my POF with this hard aspect, I'm hanging on to the sides of my rubber raft trying not to overturn in the turmoil. Yet, with the Pisces planets in my 10th, 2 free website links have fallen into my lap. All I have to do is make a website.
I heard news, ( MSNBC ? ) that tourists are staying away in droves because our Homeland Security is so ruthless and foolish. JUST when we need those Euros the most!

Oh I like this one!
A perky morning eye oppener!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/opinion/l19dowd.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Surely it must have been a slip for Maureen Dowd to align the artistry of my late husband, Gene Kelly, with the president’s clumsy performances. To suggest that “George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly” represents not only an implausible transformation but a considerable slight. If Gene were in a grave, he would have turned over in it.

Thanks Morgana. I agree with you here. Yesterday at work I was amazed to find in an unguarded moment that the people I work with are almost completely hoodwinked by this current government. Evidently the common understanding is that Iraq attacked us and continues to attack us and when we are taken prisoners they cut our heads off and we simply imprison our detainees and then take care of them. I was floored and tried to break through with some facts and then gave up. I felt as though I was trying to cut through dense undergrowth with a butter knife.
And yes I too expect to have McCain as president. I have been saying all along these guys have bet the farm;they aren't going anywhere but I didn't see how they could pull it off. Oh silly me! I failed to imagine what one can do with unlimited resources but I have slowly watched bumbling belly crawler McCain turn into the great white hope.Amazing and I am really frightened.

I didn't make clear that I have found this kind of uninformed alligence before but thought that current circumstances would have modified things. I was mistaken.

You expressed exactly what i've been feeling in my bones, Morgana. I do not claim to be psychic. I liken it to watching a circus (and i hate them). Even though the circus has several rings of "entertainment" going on at once, the circus owner counts the dividends to determine whether or not there needs to be some stepped-up entertainment. Maybe another ring of clowns.

Several anti-war protests going on. Let's hope this volatile "energy" doesn't blow up this effort.

You are not alone, Clymela, though it's difficult to find much comfort in that when you're in the midst of such stunning misinformation. No wonder you like coming here! :)

Nice Good Friday present for Obama. I didn't realize that Bill Richardson is Hispanic.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080321/ap_on_el_pr/obama_richardson

Uggh! Not a good article for Clinton, or her supporters.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080320/cm_thenation/1300860_1

It's really creepy when you can feel so much strange energy around, isn't it? I've felt it for a few days now, and I certainly lay no claim to psychic sense beyond the usual. You surely nailed it, Mz Morgana, and we thank you. Cap'n Sally's entry before yours was "Sitting on the Sidelines." Boy, I sure wish I was "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" as I was one sunny afternoon decades ago in SF. As it is, I feel much like QOP does, except I checked and the rubber ducky I'm riding on out here in choppy seas was made in China of toxic materials.

Sigh O Sigh Oh.

Latest on Obama's passport security breach.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080321/ap_on_el_pr/obama_passport;_ylt=At.Yy_iYofKH4_Mj9OnyqV5h24cA

Presidential Elections: Hope, Change and Pissing in the Wind

http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/398/

Cap'n Sally, Morgana, everyone: Do you think Kindasleezy will weather this storm about people's passport files being eyeballed by State employees/contractors?

They're now saying it was Hillary's as well as Obama's files.

I have this strong belief that we should all see everything we can about what is going on, in all it's darkness, but acknowledge the light that is always there for us to embrace, concurrently.

Did you all see John Edwards on the Leno show last night? He was subtle, but said a lot.

http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/33324-john-edwards-on-tonight-show-with-jay-leno-3-20-08

Sally well we know everything that occurred on Bush's Watch ended in dismal failure. I can only imagine a dotty McCain at the helm with Lieberliar telling him oops yet again. Not a good plan to try and make him a hero with their failure rate.

The puppet masters believe they have this sewn up, that the great unwashed like lambs will follow their leaders to slaughter, many will, and many won't. During the late 60's 'the establishment' believed we were all sufficiently brainwashed and indoctrinated in the American Way that they could keep us under control and we would toe the line marching deligently off to Vietnam. Boat rocking time again.

Obama's campaign is a people powered movement, and the movement has the potential to shape the man into the leader we need him to be.

People may tell me over and over that the dye is cast, that election rigged and that it is foreordained the John McCain will be the next president. So go home everyone there is nothing to see here. Hmmm... rock the boat, baby, rock the boat, rock the boat baby!

Oh I so love Bill Richardson he is one of my favorite politicians.

Toxic rubber duckies..I was at the big Pet box store at the checkout stand. They had a bin of tennis balls (my dogs love them) and I thought about picking up a bunch of the brightly dyed toys. Then I looked at the sticker, made in China and tossed the suckers back in the bin, looked at the cashier and said oops, made in China, not going to buy it. The folks in line with me agreed. So not only are we not spending, what spending we do is not going into China's pocket if we can help it.

The SI chart energies can be used by a Nation who has good control and sound reasoning would use the energies differently. The power would be wielded in a more beneficial manner, if one has gotten over ones bad self, as a nation.

http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/360/

Excerpt on the Invention of Obama

Those critical thinkers over at the Black Agenda Report have zeroed in on the making of the Obama bubble:

"The 2008 Obama presidential run may be the most slickly orchestrated marketing machine in memory. That's not a good thing. Marketing is not even distantly related to democracy or civic empowerment. Marketing is about creating emotional, even irrational bonds between your product and your target audience."

And slick it is. According to the Obama campaign's financial filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and aggregated at the Center for Responsive Politics, the Obama campaign has spent over $52 million on media, strategy consultants, image building, marketing research and telemarketing.

The money has gone to firms like GMMB, whose website says its "goal is to change minds and change hearts, win in the court of public opinion and win votes" using "the power of branding - with principles rooted in commercial marketing", and Elevation Ltd., which targets the Hispanic population and has "a combined experience well over 50 years in developing and implementing advertising and marketing solutions for Fortune 500 companies, political candidates, government agencies". Their client list includes the Department of Homeland Security. There's also the Birmingham, Alabama- based Parker Group which promises: "Valid research results are assured given our extensive experience with testing, scripting, skip logic, question rotation and quota control ... In-house list management and maintenance services encompass sophisticated geo-coding, mapping and scrubbing applications." Is it any wonder America's brains are scrambled?

"Who better to sell this agenda to the millions of duped mortgage holders and foreclosed homeowners in minority communities across America
than our first, beloved, black president of hope and change?"

The Wall Street plan for the Obama-bubble presidency is that of the cleanup crew for the housing bubble: sweep all the corruption and losses, would-be indictments, perp walks and prosecutions under the rug and get on with an unprecedented taxpayer bailout of Wall Street. (The corporate law firms have piled on to funding the plan because most were up to their eyeballs in writing prospectuses or providing legal opinions for what has turned out to be bogus AAA securities. Lawsuits naming the Wall Street firms will, no doubt, shortly begin adding the law firms that rendered the legal guidance to issue the securities.) Who better to sell this agenda to the millions of duped mortgage holders and foreclosed homeowners in minority communities across America than our first, beloved, black president of hope and change?

Why do Wall Street and the corporate law firms think they will find a President Obama to be accommodating? As the Black Agenda Report notes, "Evidently, the giant insurance companies, the airlines, oil companies, Wall Street, military contractors and others had closely examined and vetted Barack Obama and found him pleasing."

That vetting included his remarkable "yes" vote on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, a five-year effort by 475 lobbyists, despite appeals from the NAACP and every other major civil rights group. Thanks to the passage of that legislation, when defrauded homeowners of the housing bubble and defrauded investors of the bundled mortgages try to fight back through the class-action vehicle, they will find a new layer of corporate-friendly hurdles.

I personally admire Senator Obama. I want to believe Senator Obama is not a party to the scheme. But corporate interests have had plenty of time to do their vetting. Democracy demands no less of we, the people. CP

Wow!
That endorsment was even better than the Kennedy's!
I love Richardson's beard. He looks like Gorden Raitt in Carousel
He just almost moved Obama to tears! ( He was biting his lip)

Morgana,

" Then I looked at the sticker, made in China and tossed the suckers back in the bin, looked at the cashier and said oops, made in China, not going to buy it."

AMEN and ABSOLUTELY!

It has already gotten worse and will only continue to until it all gets destroyed for real.

I'm highly suspicious that McCain is beginning to suffer from Dementia. I don't wish that on anyone. My mother has it and it's horrible and I can't wait for them to find a cure so no one ever has to go through it or care for a family memeber who gets it. I think I know the signs, and McCain has exhibited them in the last few days. He has repeated the same statement even though he gets corrected and he acknowledges the correction. His synapse is set with the original statement and his brain isn't creating the new synapse (or memory) of the correction. He is losing control, probably because he's tired (who wouldn't be), which is when it becomes much more pronounced.

Yet I hear nothing about this. How far is the msm willing to go to protect their republican candidates? Far enough to support a demented President?

Speaking of demented:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/opinion/20thu1.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Mission Not Accomplished

[snip]
In a speech on Wednesday, the start of the war’s sixth year, Mr. Bush was stuck in the Neverland of his “Mission Accomplished” speech. In his mind’s eye, the invasion was a “remarkable display of military effectiveness” that will be studied for generations. The war has placed the nation on the brink of a great “strategic victory” in Iraq and against terrorists the world over.

Even now, Mr. Bush talks of Iraqi troops who “took off their uniforms and faded into the countryside to fight the emergence of a free Iraq” — when everyone knows that the American pro-consul, L. Paul Bremer III, overrode Mr. Bush’s national security team and, with the president’s blessing, made the catastrophically bad decision to disband the Iraqi Army and police force.

Mr. Bush wants Americans to believe that Iraq was on the verge of “full-blown sectarian warfare” when he boldly ordered an escalation of forces around Baghdad last year. In fact, sectarian warfare was raging for months while Mr. Bush refused to listen to the generals, who wanted a new military approach, or to the vast majority of Americans, who just wanted him to end the war.

All evidence to the contrary, Mr. Bush is still trying to make it seem as if Al Qaeda in Iraq was connected to the Al Qaeda that attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001. He tried to justify an unjustifiable war by ticking off benefits of deposing Saddam Hussein, but he somehow managed to forget the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

Vice President Dick Cheney was equally deep in denial on Monday when he declared at a news conference in Baghdad that it has all been “well worth the effort.”

more...

QOP Richardson rocks, he was on my list of preferences.

Marketing is the world we currently live in as it is now. Without good marketing, and image management you end up looking like Kuccinch. When I'm forced to make a job change (takes a ton of bricks) I market my skill set, I sub-market being a female in a predominately male field, and I have a headhunter who handles all that. All I have to do is make the sale at the interview(s). This is the world we live in today. So in a perverse sense I am glad to see he has made that investment. He is market-able, imagine what kind of somersaults they will have to perform to sell the McCain cadaver, pasty dotty white man to a public sick of the GOP whack jobs, and a built-in track record of screwing NA folks, singing, bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.

Check out Huffington Post, Chris Wallace and another talking head broke ranks with the Fox News masters.

I listened to both Richardson and Obama today, MSNBC carried Richardson in full, and most of Obama's speech until he segued to his stump speech, it was a wow cool moment, the crowd was wild with enthusiasm.

It felt good (Obama/Richardson speechs), which with so much around us that doesn't feel good and adds stress to our already stressed out lives, being constantly inundated with negativity in one form or another, hate opening the mail box, so yup it's a feel good breeze.

It'll be the movement that will make the man, not the man the movement. We the People, the grass roots are the movement.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032008G.shtml

We Need a President, Not Just a Commander in Chief
By Joe Brewer and George Lakoff
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 20 March 2008

In this primary season, the question of what makes a good presidential candidate has taken many forms. Is it how to negotiate with leaders of other nations? What kind of experience qualifies one to be a leader? Yet, the question that should make progressives ripple with discomfort is "Will the president be a strong commander in chief?"

Emphasis on "commander in chief" activates a right-wing frame and progressives should be very circumspect in referring to the presidency in this manner.

Though the words themselves are neutral, they have been used within a right-wing frame that is not obvious. The frame includes the following:

* The overriding challenge facing our country is military in nature.

* The military role of the president is, therefore, far more important than all of the other jobs he or she performs.

* Military experience, or direct experience with military affairs (e.g., the Armed Services Committee), is the single most important experience needed for the presidency.

* The country should be governed on a military basis. The state should first and foremost be a security state.

* The temperament needed for a president is martial; the president should be a fighter and should be engaged in fighting.

* The governing style for a president should be giving orders and making sure they are carried out. Others in public service should be obedient to the president's orders.

That is what it means to make the "commander-in-chief" question the main issue in a campaign. The commander-in-chief frame shifts the role of the president away from governing our nation and into the more limited scope of managing military affairs. It takes us away from domestic questions, including other questions of protection and leadership.

That frame is not what America is about. It does not embody fundamental American values. Nor does it portray what the role of the government is in our democracy. The dual roles of government are protection and empowerment, as we have written elsewhere. Protection is not just military or police protection, but a wide range: consumer protection, worker protection, environmental protection, social security, protection from natural disasters and disease and protection from economic devastation.

more...

Luna, the Commander-in-Chief is a misnomer that is being sold (marketed) to us as if the President is OUR Commander-in-chief. Nothing could be further from the truth. The CIC only holds that title for the armed forces. As an army brat it always makes me laugh when Bush (or any other President) is called MY Commander-in-Chief (well, I consider him the pResident anyway, but you get my drift). Don't you hate the way our society is being militarized? Getting us ready for the endless war.

That's a very accurate assessment Morgana.
The movement will make the man!
The situation keeps taking unexpected sharp turns!
That Uranus/Neptune mutual reception!

Marta, It's like a comic book version of the evil empire. All black/white, right/wrong. All male energy gone wild. As bad as it is the female version of gone wild with girls showing their breasts is so benign compared to the male version of pulling out guns and shooting everything in sight. We live in Gone Wild times for sure.

The petition

In 1998 Don Siegelman was elected Governor of Alabama.He was the only official elected to all four of the states' highest offices. Don was a threat to the Republician party which caused a lengthy investigation to begin in 1999.

On June 29,2007 Don Siegelman was sentenced to 7 years and 4 months. This case centered around

Richard Scrushy giving a contribution to Don's campaign for the lottery. Scrushy was appointed to a board of which he had served on under three governors.Scrushy gave the contribution like he said, because he believed in the man and what he could do for the state. Where was the crime?

They were brought to trial one month before the Democrat primary in 2006. This is a Watergate 2008,if ever there was.

We citizens of Alabama and the United States sign this petition in agreement that Congress needs to fully investigate this case. We also want Don Siegelman set free and his name cleared by Congress.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Don-Siegelman-Free/index.html

http://www.donsiegelman.org

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-predators21mar21,0,7062149.story

Pentagon battle breaks out over a spy plane

Defense Secretary Gates wants more unmanned Predator aircraft in Iraq. But the Air Force worries about the long-term viability of the spy plane program.

snip

Some officers said pressure from Gates resulted in one plan that could have taken the Air Force down a path similar to the German Luftwaffe, which cut back training in World War II to get more pilots in the air.

"That was the end of their air force," said Col. Chris Chambliss, commander of the Air Force's Predator wing. The Air Force plan, presented to the military leadership in January, eventually was scaled back.

The surge in drone flights is Gates' latest push for short-term measures to win the Iraq war that will have long-term implications for the U.S. military. In recent months, Gates has campaigned to increase the size of the Army and to ship new, heavily armored troop transporters, known as MRAPs, to Iraq.

More at the link...

http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1199&thisview=item

80,000 Angry Men. Is the US Surge collapsing?
Iraqis employed by the US to take on al-Qaida are threatening to strike

An investigation carried out by GuardianFilms for Channel 4 uncovers how thousands of Iraqis employed at $10 a day by the US to take on al-Qaida are threatening to go on strike because they say they have been used by the 'Americans to do their dirty work' and haven't been paid.

http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1168&thisview=item

The real face of war

Reality of war and Winter Soldier testimonials not covered by US television news

Al Gore asking us to sign this petition and pass it on. He wants the world leaders to know the people are making these demands:

http://wecansolveit.org/page/s/onemillionalli

Solutions to global warming exist and we -- already more than 850,000 strong -- are calling on leaders to make them happen.

By coming together, we’re showing overwhelming support for leadership on this critical issue. Add your voice now and help make climate change a priority:

"I call on leaders in business and government to solve the climate crisis."

It should be called Global Winding.
The winds here, just broke the leg on my sign out front, and threw a plastic table off the porch around the corner of the house and out of sight.
I know..... lucky it isn't a tornado!
lucky I have red duct tape!

Thank heavens we missed this one. Whew!

http://tinyurl.com/2jozwg

lunaoscura, big pink guns.

Definitely not a tutu wearer!

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080320_gore_vidal_speaks_seriously_ill_of_the_dead/

Gore Vidal Speaks Seriously Ill of the Dead

This seems to be the time of year that I detach for some reason, just a week before my birthday.
So worn out from wrongs we can't right, from pointless distractions served up by the MSM, it is like living in a fishtank with neon gouramies back & forth, forth & back, purely instinctive non-productive exertion.

Paul Levy suggests that dark energy waits for fertile ground in which to take root, like it did in Nazi germany. The chinese have done a bang-up job in taking up the torch. But for a country that historically has done fantastically well making patient, measured moves before pouncing, they have become impatient, childish and reckless. It occurred to me strongly last night, we could be looking at the beginning of liberation for the Tibetans. It appears sacrifice happens in different spots of the world to the darker forces, naturally cynically expecting sprouts becoming stink-blossoms here since we are about as effectual as gouramies.
Of course, I could be projecting.

Patb, oh geeze from what I read on international websites the hurt is on every where. Swiss banks failing, British banks failing, the mortgage crisis in England is out of control. Astrologers have been sounding the clarion for years now, and societies everywhere have had about enough of these yahoo's messing up their lives whether it is New Orleans, Beirut or Baghdad, Paris, or London, it becomes a movement. When I get off work I'll see how this looked over London, Barcelona (?) will have to check Spain, geeze the Dutch waving a red flag at the crazo's, this one nasty aspect hung over everywhere somehow.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/21/asia/pelosi.php

Dalai Lama Gives Nancy Pelosi A Warm Welcome In India

DHARAMSALA, India: As far as visits by American politicians go, it would be hard to stage a warmer reception.

Buddhist nuns waved American flags and the Dalai Lama ordered his followers to offer a standing ovation Friday morning as Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, came to this emotionally charged headquarters of Tibetan exiles and seized the opportunity to stick a finger in the eye of China.

“If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world,” Pelosi, a Democrat, said before an overwhelmingly Tibetan audience of around 2,000 in the courtyard of the main temple here, Tsulakhang.

The visit by Pelosi, who was accompanied by nine members of Congress, most of them Democrats, had been scheduled earlier as part of a visit to India. But it came on the heels of the largest protests in nearly two decades in Tibet, followed by a broad crackdown by China, and almost nonstop demonstrations in solidarity here in the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile.

More at the link.....

...........

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0803/S00166.htm

Tibet: Cultural Genocide Taking Place - Dalai Lama

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to world leaders and the international community for their concern over the recent sad turn of events in Tibet and for their attempts to persuade the Chinese authorities to exercise restraint in dealing with the demonstrations.

Since the Chinese Government has accused me of orchestrating these protests in Tibet, I call for a thorough investigation by a respected body, which should include Chinese representatives, to look into these allegations.

More at the link....

Well, isn't it just something how the Dow went back up (gov't smoke & wand tapping) to what,
12686 or something like that? Charlie Rose has interviews now engineered by one Alberto Gonzales at the top of the masthead...that's right, it's his new job. Which explains the deluge of crazy talking gobs on his program.

There's something reassuring about a BIG collapse, although the result will be some major clampdowns and buyups...frat party in full unchecked swing here, there, everywhere.
But especially here.

Pat C, so what exactly are the 8 dems doing for the Tibetans since they're unravelling their own country. What absurd "feel good" theatrics. Pelosi ESPECIALLY. Just two days ago
she said "We should be Confident about our economy". She has a mind like a dribble cup.

HAr de har har..............
REv. Wright' parents were my neighbors back in 1963,64!
Rev. Wright Sr.'s autobiography, The pilgramage of a Pastor is selling on Amazon ( 2 available starting at $125.00!!!!! ( not posting the link it's too long!)
His Mother is Dr. DOCTOR Mary Henderson
(education field)Wright!Their Grace Baptist Church was right around the block from our apartment. The neighborhood was one of wonderful big old homes, circa mid 1800's with many freed or escaped blacks settling there.
American Girl's black doll makes it there safely, to an Aunt, in the books accompanying the doll! ( pre Mattel)
http://unjobs.org/authors/mary-henderson
http://www.shawuniversity.edu/minister/presenters.htm#Wright%20Bio
AMerica trashing excellence as usual!

Great finds, QOP! Many thanks.

Yeah, patb, she has me stumped too. She also took impeachment off the table, and said there would be no dream ticket.

Who knows?

I just love the Dalai Lama and weep for Tibet.

Some "interesting" situations...

http://agonist.org/stirling_newberry/20080321/party_like_its_1926

Party Like It's 1926

Paul Krugman reminds us what is on the other side of a series of escalating unregulated booms and bail outs. But we aren't in 1929, but 1927.

...........

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/weird-interest-rates/

Weird interest rates
Continuing the discussion about the weird (and worrying) state of the financial markets, here’s a picture showing just how strange things are. Normally, we just say that the Fed sets “short-term interest rates,” because all very short rates are about the same. Below is the Fed funds target rate and the one-month Treasury bill rate; they’ve always been right on top of each other.

Always, that is, until now. Treasury rates have plunged close to zero, even though Fed funds is still 2.25%. Since open-market operations take place in Treasuries, I take this to mean that the Fed may not actually be able to reduce short-term rates much from current levels — which means, in turn, that conventional monetary policy has been taken off the table. As Brad says, be afraid — be somewhat afraid.

..........

Here an article on Spitzer and so much more.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/123489

snip

Another element of the formulas: whether an account holder was a "politically exposed person." At first focused on potentially crooked foreign officials, the PEP lists expanded to include many U.S. politicians and public officials who were conceivably vulnerable to corruption.

More at the link....

Another view of Rev. Wright with LBJ, that's right a young Wright helping LBJ after surgery.

Rev. Wright has a very passionate way of speaking but he isn't saying anything that hasn't been said and observed by many blacks and whites.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/lbj-thanks-marine-corpsman-rev.php

http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/2008/03/macfear.html

Mr President?

http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/cnishared/tools/shared/mediahub/03/95/70/slide2_470953_mike02262008.jpg

:-)

American Refugees are flooding into Canada: Tens of thousands of Americans are now economic refugees

http://www.chycho.com/?q=node/1631

The future looks really bad. They're talking about billions of people.

http://tinyurl.com/2q97ob

Water will be source of war unless world acts now, warns minister

The world faces a future of "water wars", unless action is taken to prevent international water shortages and sanitation issues escalating into conflicts, according to Gareth Thomas, the International Development minister.

The minister's warning came as a coalition of 27 international charities marked World Water Day, by writing to Gordon Brown demanding action to give fresh water to 1.1 billion people with poor supplies. "If we do not act, the reality is that water supplies may become the subject of international conflict in the years ahead," said Mr Thomas. "We need to invest now to prevent us having to pay that price in the future."

His department warned that two-thirds of the world's population will live in water-stressed countries by 2025. The stark prediction comes after the Prime Minister said in his national security strategy that pressure on water was one of the factors that could help countries "tip into instability, state failure or conflict".

more...

Dalai Lama: "I Am Prepared to Face China. I Will Go to Beijing"

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032208C.shtml

The Independent UK's Andrew Buncombe says, "Almost half a century after he fled to India, the Dalai Lama has raised the extraordinary prospect of traveling to Beijing and holding face-to-talks with the Chinese regime in an effort to resolve Tibet's most serious crisis for two decades."

Sally, thanks for that post on the Rev. Wright. I really don't see why the media and others are making such a big stink out of this. I'm sure some of us have thought similar things, but probably didn't have the guts to utter them, and as WV said in his earlier post - "why all this crap about Obama's pastor?" And in which previous election(s), has any of the candidates had their pastors scrutinized, or investigated? First, they tried to say that Obama was a Muslim, but that didn't stick. Then they found out that he was really a Christian, but he wasn't the right kind of Christian - the ones who condemn all other religions to hellfire and damnation.

I see where Bill Clinton was also using it while campaigning in NC to cast doubt on Obama's patriotism. I think it's disgusting, and time to put it to rest and move on to more pressing matters. Really, I find it so ludicrous. Frankly, I wish Obama didn't have a religion at all, but apparently Americans like to see their president as a regular churchgoer, but only if it's at a traditional Christian church I imagine.

March 23, 2008

Questions for the Rev. John Hagee
Megaminister

Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON

As a prominent evangelical pastor based in San Antonio, you were recently catapulted into national controversy when you endorsed Senator John McCain for president. Is it true that McCain actively sought your endorsement? It’s true that McCain’s campaign sought my endorsement.

How did you feel when critics called you a Catholic-basher and said McCain should reject your endorsement? My statements regarding the Catholic Church have been grossly mischaracterized. I never called the Catholic Church “the anti-Christ” or a “false cult system.” I was referring to those Christians who ignore the Gospels.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/magazine/23wwln-q4-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=magazine&pagewanted=print

Lunaoscura

I have been telling my Canadian relatives
for 40 years that someday America would
attack Canada because of water. I have
since added many other reasons. Recently
the US claimed the Northwest Passage which has been a part of Canada since 1534
when Jacques Cartier first entered the St
Lawrence.

Religion in any form ought to be kicked straight out of any discussion of any gov't business. Once again, served up du jour by the idiot MSM to the idiots who actually give it substance. Parrots. GAWD!

wv, tell me your not serious about the NW Passage. When did the u.s. claim this, any references? Man are you ever lucky to be in canada. I'm lst generation amer with 400 years of history in quebec. Thanks Grandma!

wv, oops made the assumption you were in canada.
NW passage runs over the northern part of AK, drilling hand-in-hand w/ global warming opening that area again since the migration from asia what, 68,000 years ago?

Here, patb, this should get you started on the Northwest Passage:

http://tinyurl.com/2wyuht

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/hiding-behind-the-invisible-hand/

Hiding behind the invisible hand

Thanks shy! Don'tcha just love "man"?:

"Russian mini-subs plant flag at North Pole sea bed"

How mind-bendingly churlish an act is that, we can forgive 3 year olds for throwing themselves on top of their toys to underscore the fact they just won't share...but this act by the ruskies gets the sterling Loving Cup.

Happy Easter everyone!

Personal note here "UPBEAT"
That troublesome tarp that blows off my shed roof every year at least once.............
Has stayed ON!
I used bungee cords this year instead of staples or nails......... It just bounces back in place.

The stationary roof blew off the MPBN ( Maine Public Broadcasting) building in Bangor yesterday.

There's a lesson about flexibility here!

"There's a lesson about flexibility here!" Yep, please pass the Omega-3. Blessings to all.

Eeeeeek! Gold rick-rack? Tacky, tacky--but what do ya expect from a friend of BushCo?

http://tinyurl.com/2v5gcd

Pluto in Capricorn. This article reminded me that as a country it's time to face harsh reality that will hopefully leads to deep introspection. To continue our ways is just not possible if we want to survive.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/21/7808/

Happy Anniversary, America! How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be?
by David Michael Green

Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy.

As he presides over the latest disaster of his administration, (No, it’s not a terrorist attack - that was 2001! No, it’s not a catastrophic war - that was 2003! No, it’s not a drowning city - that was 2005! This one is an economic meltdown, ladies and gentlemen!) bringing to it the same blithe disengagement with which he’s attended the previous ones, you cannot but stop and gaze in stark, comedic awe, realizing that the most powerful polity that ever existed on the planet twice picked this imbecilic buffoon as its leader, from among 300 million other choices. Seeing him clown with the Washington press corps yet once again - and seeing them fawn over him, laugh in all the right places, and give him a standing ovation, also yet once again - is the equivalent of having all your logic circuits blown simultaneously. Truly, the universe has a twisted and deeply ironic sense of humor. Monty Python is about as funny - and as stiff - as Dick Nixon, by comparison.

It’s simply incomprehensible. It’s not so astonishing, of course, that a country could have a bad leader whose aims are nefarious on the occasions when they are competent enough to rise to that level of intentionality. Plenty of countries have managed that feat, especially when - as was the case with Bush - every sort of scam is employed to steal power, and then pure corruption and intimidation used to keep it. History is quite littered indeed with bimbos and petty criminals of this caliber. What is harder to explain is how a country of such remarkable achievements in other domains, and with the capacity to choose, and in the twenty-first century no less, allows this to happen. And then stands by silently watching for eight years as the tragedy unfolds before their eyes, all 600 million of them, hardly any of them even blinking.

And so, remarkably, as we mark now the fifth anniversary of the very most tragic of these debacles, the most destructive and the most shameful - because it was the most avoidable - the sad question of the hour is less what is to be done about it than will anyone even notice? Not likely. And not for very long if they do. And, most of all, definitely not enough so as to take meaningful action to bring it to an end, even at this absurdly late date.

But let’s give credit where credit is due. This is precisely by design. This is exactly the outcome intended by the greatest propaganda-promulgating regime since Hermann Göring set fire to the Reichstag. It was Göring himself who famously reminded us that, “Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. …Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Sure worked in Germany. And it worked even better here, because these guys were so absolutely careful to avoid exposing the costs of their war to those who could demand its end. For example, by some counts, there are more mercenaries fighting in Iraq, at extremely high cost, than there are US military personnel. There’s only one reason for that. If the administration implemented the draft that is actually necessary to supply this war with adequate personnel, the public would end both the war and the careers of its sponsors, post haste. For the same reason, this is the first American war ever which has not only not been accompanied by a tax increase, but has in fact witnessed a tax cut. Likewise - to ‘preserve the dignity’ of the dead, of course - you are no longer permitted to see photographs of flag-draped caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base. And the press are embedded with forces who are also responsible for their safety, which is just a fancy way of saying that they’re so censored they make Pravda look good. It is, in short, quite easy for average Americans to get through their day, every day, without the war impacting their lives in any visible respect, and that is precisely what hundreds of millions of us are doing, week in and week out. All of this is courtesy of an administration that couldn’t run a governmental program to save its own life - but, boy, they sure as hell know how to market stuff.

more...

HAPPY EASTER TO ONE AND ALL.

Every year at this time I think about what Easter means to me. I think of course about the resurrection, someone coming back from the dead and ascending into heaven, story or not is a pretty dramatic image. Spring itself is another marking point that is an image of new possibilities. New possibilities and new hope is my image of Easter. It always brings joy into my life, or the promise of joy. Christmas and Easter, thanks to Hallmark are bright and new looking ahead to something better in our lives. That's my Easter wish for everyone here and our families and our friends, bringing something better to us all. We are still on the edge of a cliff in America and moving toward a new day, we may not like the movement but I think the ultimate changes in the years to come will be a surprise for us. Happy 2008 Easter.

Rockets Hit Baghdad’s Green Zone

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032308Z.shtml

Paul Tait, writing for Reuters, reports, “Baghdad’s heavily fortified ‘Green Zone’ came under heavy rocket or mortar attack on Sunday, and police said at least two people had been killed outside the government and diplomatic compound.”

Bush is gutting the endangered species act.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/22/AR2008032202204.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008032300179

Oh gawd......

"SO.........."?
Of course, he has to make a clean sweep. TOTAL destruction. WHat a sad unhappy STOOOOPID MAN!

Do not miss this Peeps Show!

http://tinyurl.com/29y7df

I'd love to have seen your entry, QOP.

Remember Don Siegelman?

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/

Who Is Behind the Jack Booted Thugs?

Who is behind the effort by authorities in Shelby County, Alabama, to unlawfully seize my house, which is jointly owned by my wife and me?

The central Shelby County figures in my legal case are Pelham attorney William E. Swatek (who has an almost 30-year record of unethical activities in the legal profession) and corrupt circuit judges J. Michael Joiner and G. Dan Reeves.

Evidence, however, suggests that efforts by "jack booted thugs" to steal my house are being driven by figures beyond Shelby County. Evidence also suggests that this effort has nothing to do with a desire to take our house or our cars--or otherwise satisfy an alleged "judgment" in the amount of $1,525. This clearly is about the blog you are now reading.

Let's look at what the evidence tells us:

More at the link....

Blog entry

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2008/03/jack-booted-thugs-part-ii.html#links

..and so goes the 'gutting' of the bush administration, a species that expects to preserve itself with the help of Pelosi, her sidekick and the rest of the bluedogs. Oh, they do expect to reintroduce their species in '12 and onward, the means justifying the ends always in their new self-sustaining criminal paradigm.
Siegleman is to 08 what the election '00 rapid developments in '04, and lies of elected dems in '06 are to now.

but we're not going to let them, are we (to borrow bush's debate quote in '03);.=

If we are witnessing the BEGINNING of gov't oppression then implosion through revolution years from now, when I think of how many times I had to stifle a need to wretch since '94's religious grotesquely writhing perversions well-assisted by the mutual reception of neptune in aquarius, constructing a humble but seaworthy floating transport and launching it off a quiet beach somewhere off the upper portion of washington state seems like common sense.

Pluto is invited to stuff itself. The world is being steamrollered and we mustn't kid ourselves about the price we will pay stopping these forces. They are all over the world now.
These are the dark ages, the end of the 4th Kalpa the tibetans/mayans and others warned us we would witness.
The street sweepers are running the countries whilst the worthy are sweeping the streets.

...and simultaneously witness Pelosi's breasts aching with the milk of human kindness to the tibetans (and the dubious good it will do them), while betraying behavior diabolically imitative of the chinese disconnect to the emergency and suffering of their own people.
(american translation: Leader's pissing on Advocates).

Rant for the day complete.

George Fredrick Handel & Timothy La Haye are at opposite poles............
"Those who walk in the shadow of the valley ofdeath: shall see the great light!"
":Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened.........."
Enlightenment NOT RAPTURE!

http://www.atlargely.com/2008/03/passport-gate.html

Passportgate

I'm just not sleeping tonight.

4000
http://www.comics.com/editoons/day/

.......

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

One Foot in the Grave: Iran Attack Nearer, More Likely Than Most Suspect - Written by Chris Floyd

......

My mood, and maybe perfect Pluto music for these times. If we make it through, if we transorm, there'll be a standing ovation, but that's hard to tell from where we stand right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE&NR=1

If we do, my mood will be more like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1bHLf7VIbU

Thank you shy.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/03/24/dem_remorse/?source=newsletter

The Democrats' anti-momentum

The '08 race has revealed the weird science of the Democratic primary system -- and the true problem with the long Obama-Clinton battle.

By Walter Shapiro

Is anyone else having trouble with e-mail?
I can get Aw, Huffpo, Du, truthout,etc. no problem.......verizon.net they keep "resetting" the connection and I can't open my mail.
hotmail will NOT deliver to my sister in law, ( SHE LIVES IN FLA!) but I get all the newspaper alerts, political, or regular daily friend e-mails.
( I have been e-mailng my S-i-l for at least 4 years at that email. but not frequently!)

Dick "Dick" on the 4000 dead in Iraq:

"it's a tragedy that we live in a kind of world where that happens"

http://tinyurl.com/3dw5rv

From Cato’s home page – spending on Iraq and "bridges to nowhere" equated:

Bridges Over Troubled Water

by Christopher Preble and Jeremy Lott

This article appeared on American Spectator (Online) on March 21, 2008.

Does fiscal conservatism stop at the water's edge? It's a question worth pondering because Senator John McCain is a hawk who is also rightly skeptical of too much federal spending.

During his successful bid to capture the Republican nomination for president, McCain regularly railed against Alaska's "bridges to nowhere."...

Snip

McCain made an issue of the bridges because he doesn't like earmark spending and because voters could readily agree that this was too much...

Hold on...

A large number of voters who voted for McCain in the Republican primary were anti-war. According to exit polls, 42 percent of anti-war voters who voted in the New Hampshire Republican primary cast ballots for the Arizona senator. That's an awfully high percentage. They must have been attracted to something in McCain's message.

That something was likely his admirable advocacy of spending restraint...

War costs money too. Round the bill for the bridges to nowhere that so incensed McCain up to $500 million. Our occupation of Iraq, which often seems to be getting nowhere, is costing north of $10 billion a month. That sum could finance the construction of 40 superfluous bridges this month and 480 bridges in a year.

Snip

Pentagon pencil sharpeners insist that if we stay in Iraq long enough with a force of about 130,000 troops they might be able to get costs down to $8 billion a month — or 32 bridges. That figure is too optimistic because it does not include many costs, including lifetime disability payments for thousands of wounded and maimed soldiers. So tack on at least a bridge a month, maybe two.

Most Iraq war hawks insist that this is a price worth paying, though they rarely quantify it. McCain would see those costs and raise them substantially. He would expand the active duty military and has hinted that there are more wars on the horizon, perhaps during his presidency.

All this would cost a lot of money. How much? More than a President McCain could save with a judicious use of his veto pen ...

More...

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9287

Shy, two things. I'm certain that number is a false number provided for brainless public consumption. 4,000...what a tidy number. Besides, if returning coffins are sanitized out of view, they don't exist in the mind of the public.

Then there is no mention of the million-plus innocent Iraqis that are pointlessly dead and plunged into depths of exponential grief around each, unless, that is, we have done the merciful thing and killed a person and everyone who knew and loved them.

This country with the shame of Cheney, the death-dealing goon is a MONSTER let loose on the world. What grotesquery of twisted perceptions we are fed as we try not to choke in our perceptual slumber.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3051350
Worried Yet? Saudis Prepare for "Sudden Nuclear Hazards" After Cheney Visit
I. One Tick Closer to Midnight
Last Friday, Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia for high-level meetings with the Saudi king and his ministers. On Saturday, it was revealed that the Saudi Shura Council -- the elite group that implements the decisions of the autocratic inner circle -- is preparing "national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts' warnings of possible attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors," one of the kingdom's leading newspapers, Okaz, reports. The German-based dpa news service relayed the paper's story..........
( I had NO TROUBLE opening a second page & posting this link! Just the verizon e-mail NOT working properly!?????????

http://www.internetweekly.org/2008/03/cartoon_the_real_george_bush.html
what a perfect image to put on the seldom used two dollar bill.

Perfect.

http://www.bodyofwar.com
Schedule of theater releases........
Please support if near you.
Otherwise it will come out of Donahue & Marlo Thomas Donahue's pockets, leaving less for the hospital charity she carries on in her Father's name!
Also it will enable the film to spread with it's very stronge message!

Well, qop then Pat Leahy will have to make good on his intention to snag this freak out of office, as will Biden:

"And when this attack comes – either as a stand-alone "knock-out blow" or else as the precusor to a full-scale, regime-changing invasion, like the earlier aggression in Iraq – there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no hearings, no public debate. The already issued orders governing the operation put the decision solely in the hands of the president: he picks up the phone, he says, "Go" – and in twelve hours' time, up to a million Iranians could be dead."

Impeachment? Hardly. ARREST is more like it.

In the chart of America Venus and Jupiter @ 3 and 5 Cancer have the Sun shining on their 4 degree Cancer midpoint and the feds raised the Bear Stearns bailout to $10.00 a share. Good news for the angry stockholders, bad news for the tax payer. The stockholders were up in arms over the $2.00 a share buyout and had plans to take JP Morgan and Bear Stearns to court, the additional $8.00 is seen to molify them somewhat. The most angry shareholder is a billionaire and he lost a ton of money, I don't know if it was enough money to drop his billionaire status but now they are going to make sure he doesn't starve or freeze this year.

Oh, well, Cap'n Sally, given the old trickle-down effect, we'll all be rolling in some of that dough in no time.

On a more 'new agey' note, give a read through this, I think we all need it:

http://www.matthewbooks.com/mm/anmviewer.asp?a=86&z=2

Pat C and I agree…we don’t really know where to post this video from the TED conference. But it is in any case, truly astounding. This woman is talking (reporting on) her own stoke suffered when she was 37….and it is just amazing. Her conclusions are also….

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229

Thank you patb. The Mathewbooks, is consistant with the libretto of Messiah!
"And they that walk in darkness shall see the great light!"
Imagine those words were written 267 years ago.
( And I guess they came from the Bible originally!)
Libretto by Charles Jennens,
Composed in just 24 days,( 1741) when Handel was depressed & in debt, it is one of the most uplifting, beautiful, artworks, of human creation!
We were lucky to have a most excellent performance every Dec. by the Pennsylvania Pro Musica, and it always gave me great hope and forbearance to know it had been written at a low point in Handel's life!
Such a very different interpretation of the Bible than the Evangelicals!

Yup!
Dirty Dick was over in the ME, telling Olmart & Turkey tha t Iran is preventing the "Peace Process" from moving forward!
( D W News Journal)
Also German school children are given musical instruments free..................My daughter had to pay for my Grandson's here!

Thanks Pat C & JudiGem! That TED video was fascinating.

http://tinyurl.com/36aow4

Melting Mountain Glaciers Will Shrink Grain Harvests in China and India

Lester R. Brown

The world is now facing a climate-driven shrinkage of river-based irrigation water supplies. Mountain glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau are melting and could soon deprive the major rivers of India and China of the ice melt needed to sustain them during the dry season. In the Ganges, the Yellow, and the Yangtze river basins, where irrigated agriculture depends heavily on rivers, this loss of dry-season flow will shrink harvests.

The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia. China and India are the world’s leading producers of both wheat and rice—humanity’s food staples. China’s wheat harvest is nearly double that of the United States, which ranks third after India. With rice, these two countries are far and away the leading producers, together accounting for over half of the world harvest.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that Himalayan glaciers are receding rapidly and that many could melt entirely by 2035. If the giant Gangotri Glacier that supplies 70 percent of the Ganges flow during the dry season disappears, the Ganges could become a seasonal river, flowing during the rainy season but not during the summer dry season when irrigation water needs are greatest.

more...

Thanks qop...more time out for every one of us.
Omommytakemehomeomommytakemehomeomommytakemehome.

PatC very interesting TED video, the comments below it are extremely thoughtful and intelligent and based on some refreshing thought I'd not seen anywhere in quite some time.

Very strange..............this morning only the "pap dispensing" TV stations are available!
No BBC, NO LINK TV, No CSPAN 2...............Any body else experiencing the same? Is the bombing of Iran in progress and we are kept in the dark, by Emeril's cooking, S Gupta's medical advice etc.?

qop, these links are working for me, but the BBC is a little slow.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

http://www.c-span.org/

I mean Satillite TV.that is what i can't get.
I don't have time to sit in front of the computer for my news I need my hands free................

Ah! That would be your TV provider then.

Frustrating, I know.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143586/article.html?tk=nl_spxnws

Pennsylvania Yanks Voter Site After Data Leak

A Web programming flaw on the State of Pennsylvania's Web site has exposed sensitive voter registration data.

With voting in Pennsylvania's presidential primary just a month away, the state was forced to pull the plug on a voter registration Web site Tuesday after it was found to be exposing sensitive data about voters in the state.

The problem lay in an online voter registration application form that was designed to simplify the task of registering to vote. State residents used it to enter their information on the Web site, which then generated a printable form that could be mailed to state election officials. Pennsylvania's Department of State disabled the registration form late Tuesday after being informed of the vulnerability by IDG News Service.

More at the link..

Saudi King Calls for Interfaith Dialogue

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has called for a dialogue among monotheistic religions -- including Judaism.

Abdullah's announcement marks the first such proposal from a country where non-Muslims are banned from practicing their faith.

http://tinyurl.com/yu69cl Boston dot com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/24/ST2008032403267.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

Clinton Unveils Plan to Ease Housing Crisis

........

http://premiere.whatcounts.com/t?ctl=162A3B2:BA86CFC648048619BEAA807D896C08AAEDC3615173C7E546&

NEW PAKISTAN PM RELEASES JAILED JUDGES
Gilani selected as Pakistan's PM and releases Musharraf foe and former head of Supreme Court of Pakistan

.......

http://premiere.whatcounts.com/t?ctl=162A3B4:BA86CFC648048619BEAA807D896C08AAEDC3615173C7E546&

PHIL DONAHUE ON "SHUT UP AND SING"
Phil Donahue on corporate media and the Iraq war

We would be so much further ahead if Bush hadn't been President and vetoed embryonic stem cell research (remember it was his first veto), but they got around it by using other cells. In spite of the worst of the worst of times we still live in amazing times.

http://tinyurl.com/2k6bbt

Mice With Parkinson's Cured Using Cloned Stem Cells in Study

By Rob Waters

March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Researchers cured mice with a version of Parkinson's disease by treating them with brain cells made from clones of their own skin cells.

The researchers employed nuclear transfer, which involves swapping genetic material from one individual into an egg cell belonging to another. The same procedure was used to create Dolly the sheep, one of the first animals produced by cloning.

The findings, published today in the journal Nature Medicine, offer a glimpse into how the cloning technique might one day be used to develop therapies, as opposed to making copies of an individual. There are still hurdles to clear before the technique could be used in people with Parkinson's, said Mark Tomashima, a stem cell researcher at Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York.

``This is the first proof of principle for therapeutic cloning,'' said Tomashima. ``This is the first study where we've made individual nuclear transfer lines and used them to treat mice with disease.''

Parkinson's disease is an incurable disorder that robs about 1.5 million people in the U.S. of the ability to control body movements. People with the condition gradually lose neurons that make the brain chemical dopamine.

Tomashima and his colleagues in the lab of cell biologist Lorenz Studer took bits of skin from the tails of mice, plucked out the nucleus of the skin cells, and inserted them into egg cells from other mice whose own nuclei had been removed. Each line of stem cells that resulted was genetically identical to the mouse whose skin cells were initially removed.

Neurons and Dopamine

The researchers coaxed the stem cells to turn into neurons that produce dopamine. Those neurons were then injected back into the mice, which carried a form of Parkinson's disease.

Before they were treated with the stem cells, the mice acted out a number of behaviors linked to their condition. They moved their paws in certain unusual ways and, when placed in a bowl, moved only in one direction. Normal mice move equally in both directions.

After being injected with the cells, the behavior of the mice returned to normal. When the mice were later killed, Tomashima and his colleagues found that the neural cells they'd injected had grown and formed connections with other cells.

more...

It's all online now and is also part of our history in spite of their best laid plans.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/

(from the introduction)
(snip)
From the horror of 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq; the truth about WMD to the rise of an insurgency; the scandal of Abu Ghraib to the strategy of the surge -- for seven years, FRONTLINE has revealed the defining stories of the war on terror in meticulous detail, and the political dramas that played out at the highest levels of power and influence.

Now, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the full saga unfolds in the two-part FRONTLINE special Bush's War. Veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk draws on one of the richest archives in broadcast journalism -- more than 40 FRONTLINE reports on Iraq and the war on terror. Combined with fresh reporting and new interviews, Bush's War will be the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation's history.

"Parts of this history have been told before," Kirk says. "But no one has laid out the entire narrative to reveal in one epic story the scope and detail of how this war began and how it has been fought, both on the ground and deep inside the government."

more...

It seems money trumps everything. Now that China is becoming a Superpower, the world kisses it's ass. But it sure looks different when they aren't doing it to us. I am disgusted.

http://www.edgeofsports.com/2008-03-22-332/index.html

China's Brutal Olympic Echo

[snip]
Even after decades of occupation, the ruthlessness of the crackdown has shocked much of the world. It happens the week after the US State Department removed China from its list of the world's worst human rights offenders.

Yet the concern expressed by world leaders has seemed less for the people of Tibet than the fate of the Summer Games, with Olympic cash deemed more precious than Tibetan blood. The Olympics were supposed to be China's multibillion-dollar, super sweet sixteen. Britain's Minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations, Mark Malloch-Brown told the BBC, "This is China's coming-out party, and they should take great care to do nothing that will wreck that."

Other countries hankering after a piece of China's thriving economy have rushed to put daylight between the crackdown in Tibet and the Olympics. No surprise, the Bush’s White House, underwriting their war in Iraq on loans from Beijing, headed off any talk that President Bush would cancel his appearance at the Olympic Games when spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush believed that the Olympics "should be about the athletes and not necessarily about politics." Earlier, the European Union said a "boycott would not be the appropriate way to address the work for respect of human rights, which means the ethnic and religious rights of the Tibetans."

While the nations of the West have ruled out the idea of boycotting the games, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Tuesday that the EU should at least consider boycotting the opening ceremony if violence continues. Later Kouchner backtracked, saying "We're not in favor of it. When you're dealing in international relations with countries as important as China, obviously when you make economic decisions it's sometimes at the expense of human rights. That's elementary realism.''

more...

Srkosy is still considering a boycott, and so is Germany!
Meanwhile CNN is " diappearing Obama!"
WHentheir Wright campaign didn't really work..today they are just resorting to excluding him!
McCain & Clinton both got time to air their plans for the economy...........Barack was NOT EVEN MENTIONED!
If McCain wins we will all DIE. of BOREDOM! How tedious he is! Too bad Bob Grahame of Fla. was considered tedious; but he at ;east understood the inside track of what was going on....( the truth about the WMD's in Iraq.)
Another crane accident in Miami. Boy they are in such a hurry to make money they don't give a hang!

Monday, March 24, 2008

Tibetan Astrology and the Planetary Winds

The Kalachakra, or Wheel of Time.

In light of the current riots in Tibet I was looking online for a chart of Tibet since my Book of World Horoscopes does not contain one, and came across a wealth of material on Tibetan astrology. I confess I never realized that Tibet had its own branch of astrology that evidently is derived from a combination of Indian and Chinese methods and has its roots in Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. A site from the Tibetan Astrology network says:

http://astrodynamics.blogspot.com/2008/03/tibetan-astrology-and-planetary-winds.html

!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D !!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/mar/24/mark-tomasik-dont-discount-gore-led-ticket/

US Rep. Tim Mahoney: Don't Discount Gore-led Ticket

“If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket,” Mahoney said.

A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week during a meeting with this news organization’s editorial board.

If either Clinton or Obama suggested to a deadlocked convention a ticket of Gore-Clinton or Gore-Obama, the Democratic Party would accept it, Mahoney said.

More at the link....

Sun sq Pluto in action, 'The Tanya Harding Option'

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/25/16325/5014/95/484015

The Frontline PBS special is damning, part 2 tonight.

Obama has presidential lineage? All the more reason why he may very well be our next president; but I think this may be for entertainment purposes only.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080325/ap_on_el_pr/candidates_genealogy;_ylt=AkA96_Lr1LjVf43exUNdZAdh24cA

That's funny Morgana, considering I made the comparison in one of my old posts here. Not surprising though - Scorpio gone awry.

very interesting astro analysis of the American election of 2008 ...

http://www.hermes3.net/2008election.htm

http://www.thecosmicpath.com/doc/weekly.html

Weekly Weather Forecast

March 24, 2008 - March 30, 2008

by Kathy Biehl

The sky continues to crackle with Uranian energy. Jupiter and Uranus remain in close contact to each other and to Chiron, a three-way offering expanded, beneficial changes in mindset and circumstances, rife with accelerated personal growth. Uranus is also overseeing the embrace that has been building between Mercury and Venus. The messenger of the gods and the goddess of love start the week by blending thought and communication with relationships, money, aesthetics and values, before each planet steps into Uranus’ electrifying energy. Insights, messages and shifts that have been long coming will erupt throughout the week. Lights will flip with sudden and blazing intensity; situations that have been foggy, vague or misperceived will zoom into focus.

It seems that Hillary has been caught
lying again.

Do we REALLY want her for President.

Considering her staff...what sort to
trash would she bring into the government? Can any of them speak the TRUTH?

Chris Mathews is defending her for it!

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/look-and-feel-15-years-younger/

Look and feel 15 years younger!

The latest report of the Social Security Trustees is out. I think the key message is what has happened to the estimate of actuarial balance — the difference between projected outlays and projected revenues over the next 75 years. This is the thing that’s supposed to get steadily worse as time goes by, as the 75-year window contains ever fewer years in which the baby boomers are in the work force, paying payroll taxes, and ever more years when the boomers are out of the work force and collecting benefits.

In fact, however, the actuarial balance has been improving rather than worsening. It’s now better than it’s been since 1993. What this tells us is that projections made in the mid-to-late 1990s were, in the light of subsequent revisions, way too pessimistic.

Moral: Social Security’s financial problem is relatively minor. It doesn’t deserve the emphasis it receives from most pundits.

Links within text....

Marta, Holy Paradigm! Hermes3 is a MUST READ
all! Particularly the "Crosses of 2010" (part 3 on his site) guys,
Dan Furst is a genius! You will be heartened and happy, guaranteed.

PatC, if you would like to touch base my email is patwbishp@msn.com.
You're a gem for what you bring here, and we all luv it!

whoopsie, correction: patwbishop@msn.com

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/btm/feature/2008/02/29/unforeseen/

Greed, water and poetry

Interview with the vampire. Just kidding. Here's an interview where Hillary gives her reasons why she vows to push on with her campaign, even to the convention, if that's what it takes. Notice in this interview, as with others I've watched, she says "you know" an awful lot of times. Must be some reason for it, but don't know what it is.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/exclusiveclintonvowstopushon

Patb, thanks ... thought ya'll would be interested in the Hermes3 site. BTW he predicts an Obama win ...

Marta, Thanks for that link!

It looks like the Summer of 2010 is going to be worse than it is now, only it'll be the people's backlash.

Orders for durable goods decline again:

http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/m3/index.htm

Holding McCain Accountable

http://tinyurl.com/2dx268 Firedoglake

Yesterday, on behalf of a large number of progressive bloggers and activists, Jane went to the FEC and filed an official complaint against John McCain’s alleged campaign finance violations. We’ve been asking a lot of questions about this, and the answers have been less than forthcoming. So, instead of just sitting here and stewing about yet another GOP ethical problem, we decided to put our action where our concerns were.

As you’ll see from the vi-deo, Jane handed over the official complaint to the FEC yesterday to get the process going:

More at the link….

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-bonds-insurer-fgic.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

FGIC: Mortgage Losses Exceed Legal Limits

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/26/iraq_debate/

What can and cannot be spoken on television

This story is in a Florida newspaper

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/mar/24/mark-tomasik-dont-discount-gore-led-ticket/

Don’t discount Gore-led ticket

U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, whose district includes much of Martin and St. Lucie counties, is hoping he won’t have to attend the Democratic Party national convention in Denver in August.

If he does go, that will mean the Democrats still haven’t decided a nominee for the presidential election. And if neither Sen. Hillary Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama has clinched the nomination by August, Mahoney says we may see a brokered convention, meaning the nominee could emerge from a negotiated settlement.

“If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket,” Mahoney said.

A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week during a meeting with this news organization’s editorial board.

If either Clinton or Obama suggested to a deadlocked convention a ticket of Gore-Clinton or Gore-Obama, the Democratic Party would accept it, Mahoney said.

more...

Second shooter at RFK's assassination? Read it and weep.

http://tinyurl.com/2rqqth

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/26/a_century_in_iraq_replacing_un

Robert Dreyfuss on John McCain the neocon on Wednesday's Democracy Now

A Century in Iraq, Replacing UN with “League of Democracies,” Rogue State Rollback? A Look at John McCain’s Foreign Policy Vision

snip

McCain looked around the world, and he said, OK, our job is basically to force regime change in all of these countries. And he signed on early to the issue of going into Iraq and forcing a regime change there, long before anybody really had any kind of concerns about al-Qaeda, long before Iraq’s connection to terrorism seemed important. It was simply a principle that any state that didn’t conform to an American view of democracy was liable to be rolled over or rolled back, in McCain’s view.

Many of his advisers, including Randy Scheunemann, who’s now running his foreign policy task force, were engaged in that. Randy was then a chief staffer for Trent Lott. He wrote the Iraq Liberation Act that the neoconservatives and Ahmed Chalabi championed and pushed through Congress. He, Scheunemann, founded the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in 2002 with White House support. He was also a founder of the Project for a New American Century, which was the sort of ad hoc think tank that the neocons put together. All of this is a sign of—and the fact that McCain would name him as his chief adviser—that McCain, in a way that Bush never did, is a true neocon.

Did anyone notice in the Hermes article, that most of the planets in Obama's charts are in the wrong signs?
So how can the predictions be right, based on erroneous placements of planets? Doesn't make sense.

What I think possible, is that Obama might form his own party, or run as an Independent, but I don't know what that would entail, and if it is doable.

He did make a few errors (which anyone can make when up to yr eyeballs in charts) think that chart is for 1941 not 1961. Also, the inaugural chart is for 12:30pm not 12:00pm which is the traditional time. Even tho it would be good if they could delay 1/2hr.
The rest of what he's done is quite fantastic however, particularly the "russian doll" image to bring these patterns into wholistic form.

Now that he knows he'll fix it.

Elected Democrats are getting nervous about the party's survival. From what everyone has predicted about the Democratic Convention this probably isn't going to work, but it's worth noticing that many are worried about the weakening of the Democratic party at such a critical time.

http://tinyurl.com/2w3nhz

Tennesseean pushes plan to avoid brokered convention
By Sam Youngman

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) is actively promoting a plan that he says would prevent a brokered Democratic convention, a situation he believes would pave the way for a Republican to maintain control of the White House.

The second-term governor has proposed a “superdelegate primary” in which the 795 superdelegates who will likely decide their party’s nominee would meet to cast votes. The result would hopefully help the party avoid a contentious, brokered convention and allow a divided party to start the healing process before Labor Day, Bredesen said.

In an interview with The Hill on Monday in Washington, where Bredesen was pushing his novel idea, he acknowledged the reception from both campaigns and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has been lukewarm. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (N.Y.) campaign said Monday that they respect Bredesen, but there are still contests remaining and the process should be allowed to play out.

But in talks with other governors and superdelegates outside Washington, Bredesen suggests his plan is getting stronger reviews. He said he has heard growing concerns in these conversations about a need to find a way to pick a nominee before the summer convention in August.

“It generally breaks down to inside the Beltway and outside the Beltway,” Bredesen said.

Bredesen’s plan would bring the superdelegates together for a special primary after the last nominating contests on June 3. Their votes would provide enough support for either Clinton or Obama to be declared the Democratic nominee and avoid a brokered convention.

more...

Because I post a lot about climate change and global warming here's what McCain just said yesterday. So, if the Democrats 'snatch defeat out of the jaws of success' and McCain becomes President I want to know what he says about it.

http://tinyurl.com/yvmwer

McCain calls for greater fight on global warming
In foreign policy address, GOP candidate tempers Iraq stand
By Russ Britt, MarketWatch

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain on Wednesday called for greater vigilance in combating global warming, saying that a successor to the Kyoto Treaty should be enacted.
McCain called for the U.S. to be good "stewards of our planet," saying the treaty that U.S. has yet to ratify is necessary to preserve the Earth. A cap-and-trade system in which environmental credits are exchanged much like common stock is a system the Arizona senator said he favors.
"The risks of global warming have no borders," McCain said. "We and the other nations of the world must get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand off a much-diminished world to our grandchildren."
Shades of gray in his Iraq position
McCain called for the environmental measures as he delivered what was billed as a major foreign policy address in Los Angeles. The Arizona senator tempered his tougher stand on issues such as Iraq by calling for moderation in how it conducts itself in the world.

Thank you all for your kind words. They mean a lot.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20080326_hasen.html

About Face: The Roberts Court Sets the Stage for Shrinking Voting Rights, Putting Poor and Minority Voters Especially In Danger

Crystal, did you go further into Hermes chart, the placement of the planets are based on a noon time, because we don't really have a firm birthtime for either of them. There are several that have been postulated and one that's been rectified, but we don't really have the exact times, so he used a noon chart which is acceptable in astrology, but does shift timing or can and the angles as well as the Moon would not be exact. In the case of Obama, his Moon is either in Taurus or Gemini (not known without the birthtime)

This article made me think of a refrain in one of Neil Diamond's songs "money talks, but it don't sing and it don't walk." Some of Hillary's big bucks buddies (and the DNC's money buddies) are threatening to pull their dollars and not give anymore to the party (they are from Florida) it will be a test as to whether the DNC can stand by their rules and not seat Michigan or Florida and can the people in America pick up their slack?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/27/912/91904/66/485037

I'm doing a little research on McCain on global warming. This is an article from 2004. Gore said in some interview a while back that the high ranking Republicans he's spoken to say that no matter who becomes President the issue will be addressed immediately.

http://www.alternet.org/story/18283/

McCain's Lonely War on Global Warming

By Bill McKibben, OnEarth Magazine. Posted April 1, 2004.

[snip]
After Karl Rove finally managed to sink his candidacy, McCain went back to Washington and held hearings in the Commerce Committee on global warming. Real hearings, with real scientists. And then, last fall, he managed to force the first real Senate vote on actually doing something about the largest environmental peril our species has yet faced. The bill he drafted with Senator Joe Lieberman was modest to a fault, and it lost 55-43, but at least, 15 years after the issue first surfaced in the public consciousness, there'd been a vote. "We'll be back this year to do it again," he said when I talked with him in Washington earlier this year. "Campaign finance reform took us seven years. This may take longer, but we'll stay at it."

more...

lunaoscura, interesting Hillary doesn't want Bredesen's solution, huh. Wonder wonder why (sarcasm).
Could it be that this nomination process has been set up to fail like the end of the railroad tracks, and could it be there is a bit of an ambush just ahead?
Could it be a trap set open set to spring on the nomination process Ms Clinton would just as soon allow to remain?

Sally, contacted Dan and he's fixing his data today along with the rest of it regarding the election.

Last one, I promise. This is from Feb. 2007. Read the last sentence for encouragement

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/22/mccain-loony-warming/

Radical Right Attacks McCain Over Global Warming: ‘Loony,’ ‘Environmental Extremist,’ ‘Popping Off’»

Yesterday in California, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said what has now become conventional wisdom: that the Bush administration’s inaction on global warming has had damaging consequences for our environment. “I would assess this administration’s record on global warming as terrible. And I have held hearings when I was chairman of the Commerce Committee for years and got no cooperation from the administration on this issue whatsoever,” McCain said.

For speaking such a casual truth, McCain has come under attack from the small contingent of global warming deniers on the right who refuse to accept the science. A few examples of the attacks:

Ankle Biting Pundits: McCain Sides With The Loony Left On Global Warming. … No Senator McCain, the President’s record on global warming is not terrible. Just because he doesn’t want to go along with the Euro’s and the lefties in voluntarily destroying our economy doesn’t make him wrong.

Jon Fleischman: McCain Embraces Environmental Extremism in California Appearance

National Review: He’s in CA doing “non-political” global warming events?? Gee, and they wonder why conservatives don’t trust him.

Tonight, Fox pundit Mort Kondracke said McCain’s comments were an example of him “popping off” and demonstrating he is “not entirely in control of his mouth.” Watch it:

[video]

Global warming is not a partisan issue. A recent poll taken among conservatives in South Carolina indicate 56 percent believe global warming is happening. Slowly, a consensus on the issue is building, leaving only the fringe right in its wake.

(end)

The jokers in the Pentagon have out-done themselves with this contract to teen-agers in Miami to supply the Afghans with arms. I'm serious.

http://tinyurl.com/328sca

"About Face: The Roberts Court Sets the Stage for Shrinking Voting Rights, Putting Poor and Minority Voters Especially In Danger"

This is just another step PatC to marginalizing the "great unwashed" that would be all of us, so it will be a vote only by people making over a specific amount of money between the ages of 18 and 65. Eventually we have to stand up for ourselves, we just let this stuff roll over us and become the law of the land.

Didn't we know the SC was hijacked anyway? The Roberts court is an equal opportunity disqualifier regarding all things constitutional.

Sally there are people who have been dedicated to just what you describe. I believe they call them Jeffersonians. They firmly believe that's what was intended from the beginning.

shy, that's just amazing! You can't make this stuff up.

........

Your calls and emails made this happen.

Keep it up...

http://www.heraldsun.com/

WASHINGTON (AP) House Democrats have asked the Justice Department to allow the imprisoned former governor of Alabama to come to Washington to testify to a committee.

If you read the entire article you'll see that it isn't a QUESTION of whether Big Brother is here. He's here. As a Sci Fi fan since I was 17 years old I've always felt this was inevitable. Speeders and stop light runners are caught now by stationary cameras, so why not have aerial cameras roaming all over the place? Sure, it will be used for good purposes, and that's why it's a mixed bag and needs some kind of privacy laws (if Big Brother lets us have any, that is).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23805369

Spy-in-the-sky drone sets sights on Miami
Police take lead from U.S. military, could be first in U.S. to use aircraft

MIAMI - Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to use cutting-edge, spy-in-the-sky technology to beef up their fight against crime.

A small pilotless drone manufactured by Honeywell International, capable of hovering and “staring” using electro-optic or infrared sensors, is expected to make its debut soon in the skies over the Florida Everglades.

If use of the drone wins Federal Aviation Administration approval after tests, the Miami-Dade Police Department will start flying the 14-pound drone over urban areas with an eye toward full-fledged employment in crime fighting.

“Our intentions are to use it only in tactical situations as an extra set of eyes,” said police department spokesman Juan Villalba.

“We intend to use this to benefit us in carrying out our mission,” he added, saying the wingless Honeywell aircraft, which fits into a backpack and is capable of vertical takeoff and landing, seems ideally suited for use by SWAT teams in hostage situations or dealing with “barricaded subjects.”

Miami-Dade police are not alone, however.

Taking their lead from the U.S. military, which has used drones in Iraq and Afghanistan for years, law enforcement agencies across the country have voiced a growing interest in using drones for domestic crime-fighting missions.

Known in the aerospace industry as UAVs, for unmanned aerial vehicles, drones have been under development for decades in the United States.

The CIA acknowledges that it developed a dragonfly-sized UAV known as the “Insectohopter” for laser-guided spy operations as long ago as the 1970s.

much much more....

Because everyone knows that terrorists routinely like to rent American fishing Charter boats to sneak into the US....

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2008-03-26-fishing_N.htm

Going fishing? Pack your passport

Rick Ungar's charter fishing service promises a great time on Lake Erie. But there's a catch — and it's not freshwater fish. It's the Homeland Security Department's new anti-terrorism rules.

When the 2008 charter season begins next month, U.S. citizens paying to fish on Lake Erie will have to bring either a passport or two other IDs if they plan to cross the northern border's invisible watery line.

When they get back to shore in the USA, they'll have to drive to a local government reporting station and pose for pictures. They won't be posing with their fish, but for Customs officers via a videophone connection.

That's because half of Lake Erie — as it happens, the half with the deeper and cooler waters that often spawn the best fishing — is in Canada. The Homeland Security Department intends to enforce new border security rules — largely focused on those coming into the country by land and air — on fishermen re-entering the country.

Ungar and many of his fellow charter boat captains — Lake Erie alone has 600-plus — are incensed.

more...

Sally, I realize that Obama's chart is cast for noon, so his moon should be in Taurus. Hermes has it in Capr.
Obama's Venus is in Cancer. Their chart shows it in Virgo. His Mars should be in Virgo. Their chart shows it in Aries. O's Saturn is in Capr. Hermes chart has it in Taurus. So it's not just a matter of the moon. All the planets are way off by sign. The only thing that's correct is his Sun at 12 Leo. Check it out. So what I'm saying is, if Dan Furst made his predictions based on the chart that he has up for Obama, then they are all wrong.

I guess PatB contacted him to make him aware of it, so that may change his prognostications.

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/link.php?id=55512

Loss of Civil Liberties Since 9/11 Timeline Submitted by Amanda Lang

Tell A Friend

A seachable/sortable timeline of the Bush/Cheney administration's attack on Civil Liberties. It's all here. The wiretapping, the Military Commissions Act, the Patriot Acts, etc.

more...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_allen_l__080326_clintons_will_be_sto.htm
It is becoming apparent to many Democratic party leaders that the Clintons will stop at nothing to regain the White House in November ~ even at the expense of the party itself. As such, prominent party leaders, already starting with Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson, will announce their support for Obama which will force the Clintons to concede ~ even before the Pennsylvania primary on April 22nd : Allen L Roland

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174911/the_fate_of_the_bear_market

The Little Administration That Couldn't
Rebuilding the American Economy, Bush-style - By Tom Engelhardt

No one was prepared for the storm when it hit. The levees meant to protect us had long since been breached and key officials had already left town. The well-to-do were assured of rescue, but for everyone else trapped inside the Superdome in a fast-flooding region, there was no evacuation plan in sight. The Bush administration, of course, claimed that it was in control and the President was already assuring his key officials that they were doing a heck of a job.

No, I'm not talking about post-Katrina New Orleans. That was so then. I'm talking about the housing and credit crunches, as well as the Bear Stearns bailout, that have given the term "bear market" new meaning.

Now, don't get me wrong -- when it comes to the arcane science of economics, like most Americans, I'd benefit from an "Economics for Dummies" course. What I do know something about, though, is history, a subject that hasn't been on the Bush administration's course curriculum since the President turned out not to be Winston Churchill and conquered Iraq refused to morph into occupied Germany ‘n Japan 1945.

History may not repeat itself, but the administration's repetitive acts these past seven years make an assessment of our economic situation possible, even if you are an economics dummy.

Just consider the record: Administration officials proved incapable of rebuilding two countries that their military occupied and damaged. In Afghanistan and Iraq, while talking up the President's "freedom agenda," they were the equivalent of a natural disaster, a whirlwind of destruction.

More at the link....

Is backlash by the Lords of Karma sweet irony or what? Now all those people who dismissed Gore are whimpering for him to save them!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/27/time-mag-cover-how-al-g_n_93677.html

Time Mag Cover: "How Al Gore Could Save The Democrats"

With Democrats beginning to voice fears about a long summer of two candidates sniping over electability, the name of unofficial party elder Al Gore has resurfaced. Gore was tossed around early and often as a potential nominee, complete with his own grass roots recruiting party. However, the former Vice President and Nobel laureate assiduously avoided exhortations to run.

Nevertheless, the Gore question is coming back. Joe Klein is the latest to make the case for Al Gore coming into the Democratic race in the case of a brokered convention:

"Let's say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. ... All they'd have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party-and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? ... A prominent fund raiser told me, 'Gore-Obama is the ticket a lot of people wanted in the first place.'"

more…

Harry Ried delivered his cryptic reassurance that per a conversation he had with Howard Dean, the dems have a solution well in hand, but just won't tell us what it is specifically:

Question: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention?
Reid: Easy.
Q: How is that?
Reid: It will be done.
Q: It just will?
Reid: Yep.
Q: Magically?

Reid: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with Governor Dean (DNC Chairman Howard Dean) today. Things are being done.

Regardless of who you support, this is a promising development. The longer we allow John McCain to run unopposed — while at the same time bashing each other over the head with petty insults and attacks — the worse our chances are in the fall. I sincerely hope the Democratic leadership realizes this.

Make it happen, Harry.

Pat C. re the Little Engine that Couldn't. sigh. doesn't anyone else have the sneaking suspicion that this is part of the plan? meaning, this is the big engine that wouldn't!

Yep Judi, it was set up quite some time ago by disqualifying FL & MI, a game at our expense.
Reasonable to expect another trap right after the dems spring open this trap.
It appears they fall for every joke and allow themselves to be corraled into every dead end the repugs set up for them.

I wish I still believed Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi cared. But I don't. What they think is for the good of the party is to take impeachment off the table and to give Bush all the funding he wants for the Iraq war while saying they're against it.

And I really wish I hadn't ever seen this side of Hillary. It was one thing for her to defend herself all those years. It was admirable to see her strength in the face of things that would defeat most people. But now she's hired and is doing the exact same thing that was done to her. I'm very sorry to be witness to it because I had grown to admire her. The best I can say about how I feel is that I'm disappointed in Hillary, and really, really disappointed in Bill. Maybe they want to have the DLC be the Democratic party, without any other ideology.

lunaoscura, you're right of course. Ried & Pelosi have turned out to be something....else.
BillC seems to have a hand in disaster capitalism among other things. I just can't believe he expects or wants Hillary to win, and sensed from day one (given a number of sabotaging moves he's made that hurt her every time, and no one can tell me it wasn't "accidently on purpose" he was that sloppy).

So who can we trust in power to do the right thing? Not one person.

Oh, here's a speculation that sure to please...not.
Obama/Bloomberg ticket? Horrifying as a Lieberman-in-waiting. If he picks a dog like Bloomberg, it's not hard to speculate what awaits Obama if he scores the nomination, then us.:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/27/obamabloomberg-ticket-m_n_93699.html

Took a look at Bloomberg 2-14-42, despite his many good works he seems to have quite an unpleasant history with women, which include some serious charges. (moon applying to square mars & saturn, retro venus among other things.) He couldn't make it out of the gate with that baggage, and if he does he's certain to bring Obama down with him after the repugs work over his public skeletons.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080327/NEWS/80327020/1001

Court allows Siegelman release from prison pending appeal

A federal appeals court has approved the release of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on bond while he appeals his bribery conviction.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that Siegelman has met the legal standard necessary to allow him to be free from prison while he seeks to show he was wrongly convicted.

The former Democratic governor is serving a sentence of more than seven years for six bribery-related counts and one obstruction count. He began serving the term last June.

I don't think Al Gore is the magic bullet; maybe to a handful of those who never got over the election results of 2000, but I don't think it's fair to have Al just walk in and assume the mantle of Democratic Nominee after the 2 other candidates have busted their butts campaigning, and raising funds. Besides, I think he's got better things to do. I just wish all the speculation would stop. Bloomberg? Nah. I saw Hillary on PBS news tonight giving a speech on the mortgage crisis. It was a good speech, and she was speaking about 5 decibels lower than her norm, and she sounded very good and very human, so maybe if she stopped going on the attack, and being shrill, she might have more appeal. I think she made a big mistake involving Bill in her campaign, and actually, I feel she would have done much better if she had parted company with him after the Lewinsky scandal, and run on her own merit, even in 2004 when Kerry ran. I don't think he would have been much competition for her. It just seems to me that Hillary uses poor judgement when it comes to making decisions that affect her.

One thing's for sure - the DNC/DLC need to be overhauled after this election in order to avoid the mess that was created this year. I think the role of the Superdelegates need to be diminished if not altogether eliminated.

Bloomberg, retro Venus? I know I'll be crucified for stating this, but I'll do it anyway. From observation, Venus Rx in a male chart indicates homosexuality, or at least effiminacy, but don't say I said it. Maybe I should use a disclaimer at the end of posts like these.

Brave Tibetan Buddhist monks interrupted a staged press event in Lhasa and told journalists what is really happening there in their monastery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Djd4D5-4DU

Crystal, where did you hear that a retrograde Venus indicated homosexuality? It does indicate "love denied, or lessons around love" it also indicates lots of karmic relationships whether parent, child, friend, or lover but not usually homosexuality, there are other indication for sexual preferences.

Shy, shocking to hear Chavez siding with the Chinese and that the u.s. was aiding in ruining the olympics for them. Whereas before may have given Chavez a few rah rahs, he just ate a bad clam.
So Chavez sells out the tibetans for a few billion bucks. Nice guy.

http://www.slate.com/id/2187498/

The Education of a 9/11 Reporter

THE INSIDE DRAMA BEHIND THE TIMES’ WARRANTLESS WIRETAPPING STORY.

............

http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1232&thisview=item

Seven days not in Tibet

Guardian: Chinese police blocking attempts to verify different claims made by Chinese State and Tibetans

http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1236&thisview=item

Monk protest disrupts media visit

State-organized trip to Lhasa interrupted by monks who talk to media

Crystal, I'm one of the "handful" (surely there are more of us than that) who never got over the 2000 election results. The January 2009 day the Supreme Court ordered the ballot counting stopped, while Bush was "ahead", I went outside and took down my flag. The Republic was dead.

I'll never fly the flag again until/unless we somehow become a Republic again.

That being said, I don't believe Gore is the answer in 2008. We need a candidate that people voted for this year. I believe Obama will be the Democratic candidate.

I wish I were a much better astrologer. I've been looking at the 2009 Inauguration chart, and is it just me? or does it look more hopeful than those of 2001, and 2005?

Gore has fantastic planets, absolutely awesome. I'll bet Sally or Morgana could enlighten us on that. Gore and Obama together would be spectacular, astrologically as would Gore and Edwards.

I couldn't think of any better way to repair what has been ruined.

ttp://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002739

Scott Horton/Harpers:

Court of Appeals Sets Governor Siegelman Free As Congress Calls Siegelman to Testify in Continued Probe of Political Prosecutions

Today was a news double-header for former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. In an order issued by the Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Siegelman’s request to be set free pending his appeal was granted. The court noting that it had reviewed the decision of District Court Judge Mark Fuller for “clear error” ...

snip

Meanwhile in Washington, the House Judiciary Committee made clear that it was far from finished with its probe into allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the Siegelman case.

Committee investigators express concern about the Justice Department’s continuous obstruction of efforts to investigate political influence in the Siegelman case and a group of others in which prosecutors have adopted unprecedented theories in an effort to take down prominent Democrats. In the Siegelman case, Justice Department officials have refused to provide evidence under oath, claiming privilege, they have answered written queries with misleading and openly false statements, and they have refused to turn over documents requested by the Committee. The Justice Department’s stonewalling has thus been complete, top to bottom, and in view of the Justice Department’s refusal to engage in basic self-policing, Congressional oversight is urgently needed. The Judiciary Committee has now concluded that it has no alternative but to require that Siegelman appear before it. The Judiciary Committee has received tens of thousands of appeals from citizens around the country demanding that it take action to hold the Justice Department to account for its misconduct–much of this occurring after CBS News’s 60 Minutes and MSNBC’s Dan Abrams ran a series of exposes revealing extremely troubling misconduct in the course of the prosecution.

More at the link....

PatC, The Dalai Lama gives his pithiest statement ever to the chinese:

"You cannot hide your lies. This is the 21st century. You cannot hide your lies anymore".

I'm also one of the people who haven't gotten over the 2000 theft and selection, but it has much more to do with the violation of the Constitution and the coup of the government than it has to do with Gore himself. He's stepped into greatness out of one of the worst defeats a person can probably have. Gore would be foolish to limit himself to being President. He would be too constrained to be as effective as he is now. I also believe he has no intention of limiting himself since he's found his life's highest aspirations in his work. I envy him in a good way. I wish I could devote my life to my highest calling.

Our government needs to implode and finally just be destroyed. It is too corrupted to be salvaged. That's why Obama is the perfect candidate. He would be the transition President because he looks to the future and is willing to work towards something different (and he has made his plans quite clear). Only a very strong and solid individual with a vision and the intelligence to fit it can change the status quo, and change direction.

But whoever becomes President would do well to ask Gore to work with them and help them.

Very sound logic lunaoscura!

I agree with you, lunaoscura! My anger at the 2000/2001 coup was not on behalf of Gore, although I believed and believe he would have been an extraordinarily good president. And I felt I understood Gore, having relatives with east Tennessee mountain roots, and having lived there awhile myself. (What the GOP attack squads presented as false and wooden, I understood to be reticent and stoic, etc.) But, in concert with your post I agree Gore has transcended that defeat.

My anger was on behalf of the Constitution. And, of course, as some wise observers have said, the neoCons not only want to bring down the Constitution, they want to roll back the Enlightenment that birthed it.

Dan Furst has adjusted his election 08 take with the right data:

hermes3.net

Hey, it's my birthday today! Said chants to Tara and Padmasambhava to look after Benny the deer (he's old and kinda tired), and guess whut?
He was waiting for me looking in the window with his sweet disheveled face.

Oh that's so sweet patb. A nice birthday present!
And have a happy birthday all the way through!

patb! Happy Birthday!

Here's a very lively little diddy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgguBSUgyGY&feature=related

Happy birthday Patb!

The London Times March 28, 2008

Iraqi police in Basra shed their uniforms, kept their rifles and switched sides

Basra crisis leaves British withdrawal in ruins ....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3635827.ece

Thanks so much for the good wishes PatC (he-he Turkish guys/thick black fur singing birthday song) qop and luna! Good day for us all to look forward from right now.

Happy Birth-day, patb! and showers of blessings all year.

Just a little note this morning since i've yet to research the details. But our glorious leader (not) is proposing that we give the federal reserve more power to monitor financial institutions. I'll be on the lookout for any media outlet that reveals the twisted truth of just who and what the federal reserve is, aren't you?

Karen, this is a pretty neat article (though the author could use an editor). Some of the comments are quite interesting, too.

http://tinyurl.com/3y4dwa

I do think the article helps reveal "the twisted truth of just who and what the federal reserve is" and what these people intend to do to continue destruction of the economy (at their gain, our expense, of course).

Karen, my gawd I know it's horrid! Was just about to paste a Fed Reserve article but you beat me to it.
Just last nite was looking at transits (the mars/pluto dec/jan ingress into cap) to the fed reserve. This is not good.

How can swiss-cheese brain get AWAY with this stuff? He can't do this by law! They will let him continue to predate and devour right up to the last minute.

Thanks for the b'day wishes Karen, you're a doll!

Can this really be happening? Are we dreaming or is the Fed Reserve re-dreaming itself?
Sure looks like SOMEthing is muscling into the landscape late this year into next regardless of who is elected. OR are we looking at an arm wrestling match with an uninvited guest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_vLTSWpQcY&feature=related

I just went over and read the article and this is nothing new-at least people in my left side of room have been talking about this for years but without the current details.
The only surprise I feel is the surprise others express now. And the surprise I felt when frineds and family started converting to right-wing evangelical christianity. Oh yes and the surprise I have felt that no one seems to understand the Nazi handbook that is being read to us.

Clymela, not that this is a surprise. Push has come to shove. We were wondering when the in-our-faces shove would occur.
Up to now I was confident the Fed Res chart spelled it's demise. It still could. With this circumstance as the catalyst. It will intensify strangely right after the election and before the inauguration.
They will be making a bold move at that time.
Further challenge and rebellion to it come with the Cardinal Grand Cross in 2010 which could break it's back.
We could look at this as the final test. Does the Fed Reserve pull off this bluff or does it go down in flames.

I know nobody actually listens to what I have to say. Just this once, take this to heart.
This is the puzzle piece we've been groping for.

"I know nobody actually listens to what I have to say."

You silly goose! We're all probably all in crummy moods, just not ourselves. Have patience with us.

Thank heavens we have a few who cherish the truth and are not afraid to take on the liars. Be sure to share this widely (wildly, too, if you like):

http://tinyurl.com/3cdhsm

shy, to what extent, tho. Nothing will happen to these guys. We/they knew about Gonzales, we/they knew about Mukasey. Fingers point at the expected steaming pile of dung. Words and fingers pointing are not to be confused with "action" which has yet to happen on any level for 8 years.

There's the supreme court that assures nothing constitutional will see the light of day, no matter how bright the revelation.

Yep!!! I have been wondering if "they" wouldn't pull something so that the election would be canceled. but taking over the banking will work better-drain everything and leave some fool holding the bag.
The Supreme Court is one of their triumphs. what a horrible sickening joke-vicious.

From the crow's nest of the Fed Reserve's solar returns & whatnot, have a look-see at 12-23-2010 solar return NYC. Sun, north node, mars, pluto in a repeating pattern. Anyone know anything that beats that?
for the sake of "economy" here omit progressions, etc. This is IT. FR is poised again to pounce after the 2012 election unless they are seriously drowned in the bathtub.
The SC "justices" have numerous delightful connections to the 09-10 lineup in aquarius which can benefit them. Alito (also having his saturn in virgo return), Roberts especially.

We have:
The grand cardinal cross or it really is over.
This is our last chance to get this right/done.

All I can say is, whether it's Obama or HC, they'd better get busy reappointing the balance of the supreme court. That is our only hope, the other is impeaching them out.
It's demandatory. period.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/03/29/why_edwards_is_still_on_the_fence.html

NY Magazine via Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: Why Edwards is Still on the Fence

"According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards's imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton's plan (and by extension Edwards's) for its insurance mandate."

"they" are all the dems who approved gonzales and mukasey, eyes wide shut.

and Roberts and Alito, those hounds.

One of my clients is a relative of Robert Byrd, even this person doesn't get the seriousness of this.

Robert Byrd, the clearest voice in the senate is broken in half.

hummh! I was wondering why Edwards has been so quiet. I was worried about Elizabeth. Back to fearing the Neptune factor here with Obama. I was so touched by his speech on racism but have been frightened by his distancing from his pastor although admittedly I don't know what he can do since most citizens seem so unconscious of themselves and our country.
Oh disgusting-PBS running an ad for a new military worshiping program and also pushing Christianity and militarism together- no wonder the people I work with are so misinformed. I am sure that they still think that

whoops got interrupted. I was trying to say that I am sure most people still think that PBS is progressive and don't realize that it has been totally taken over by the New World Order folks,

CNN is showing a program Mortgage Meltdown, formatted like a "game".
Krugman is one of the players so I'm watching it!

Ys it's clear RObert Byrd is broken..but still trying to go thriugh the motions.
A Canadian GAVE me a Canadian gold & silver $2.00 coin today!
I asked for one in change, but the change was only .89c! he gave it to me anyway.............
They just DON"T understand! I encountered a Mainer at a 50% off Eden seeds sale. He wasn't going to buy them; too expensive...( .75c) I started explaining to him tha Eden wasn't GM and didn't have built in pesticides......
poor man kept telling me how his garden WAS organic, he doesn't spray, he puts rockweed & compost on it..........I spent some time telling him how the scientists do it..................
I'm not sure I did get through to him, I tried!

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00402.htm

M. Collins: The Money Party (5)

"Us versus Them"

We have been warned again and again that seeing the world as an "us versus them" proposition is a fatal error. It's polarizing. It leads to "class warfare." It absolves "us" of the collective responsibility we all have in a democracy. Can't have it, not allowed.

Well, here's some news for "them". It is precisely an "us versus them" world. We live in a nation where tremendous wealth calls the shots without respect or regard for the public will, fails miserably again and again, and then hides behind "collective responsibility." We're supposed to believe that somehow "we all allowed this to happen."

This point is critical: If "we" all allowed it to happen then "they" aren't responsible, ever. They have the ultimate "Get out of jail free" card. Kill, maim, steal, lie, cheat, etc. etc. and all they have to do is say everyone was in on it; therefore, they are not responsible. Starting a war based on lies that breaks the bank of the federal budget while the richest 1% get tax cuts is just one example of the fraud perpetrated by our "public servants." Did you have anything to do with that?

Snip

In 2001 the loser won. We had a president selected by the U.S. Supreme Court. The prevailing justices stopped a state recount, defying their long-held bias in favor of states' rights, a position they'd held before and returned to following their presidential intervention.

Then the looting began with a stunningly consistent display of greed and avarice bringing us to these perilous times.

More at the link....

qop, where can we send in a boxtop for our very own Canadian coins?
We can stack our coins by candlelight as Rome burns! Ahhhahahahahahahhhh!

Pat B....I happen to know Catherine Austin Fitts, in fact, I just redid all her stationery in Feb.....she knows what she is talking about. (Franklin Sanders is a business partner).

This is what Andrew Jackson railed about back in1832....the take over of the government by private banking (Sydney Biddle), and he did his best in those years to oust the same kind of bank from the federal system ....it is a continuation of the essential split in American politics between money and people. To simplify things....that is
.mickrussom: Not a new problem, Andrew Jackson: Central Banking is ...
If people only understood the rank injustice of the money and banking system, there would be a revolution by morning." …. Andrew Jackson publicly pledging ...
mickrussom.blogspot.com/2008/ 01/not-new-problem-andrew-jackson-central.html - 54k -

Catherine was assistant secretary of HUD under GWHB...she was eventually ruined the powers that be...check her website, http://www.solari.com. I did her logo. But her stories are instructive. Years later David Chase who wrote the Sopranos used a story arc incorporating the scams at HUD...
Really started worrying when Snow went for the weak dollar...however, it seems to actually have helped business owners and exporters, so who knows....

Maybe they ARE doing their very best...and maybe this isn't all a mafia extortion racket but I doubt. it. They should call an MBA from Harvard Business School an MBA in mafia business techniques. Enron is a good example.

Shy, thank you for the link. Wish we could all get together for someone's birthday! We'd all get into so much trouble :)

I keep returning to something Sally has reiterated on several occasions. That is how we PERCEIVE the world and project that perception. I was having a discussion with a good, bright, well-read friend. He happens to be an honorable business person also, and challenged me on the fact that the fed reserve was not a federal agency at all, rather a cabal of bankers. He now knows better, but the point is that if this information were widely known, our perception -- as a country -- would be altered.

The history of this shady group is not well known, Crystal. . .even to those who believe they are in the know.

More, each of us have those blind spots where we PERCEIVE something and project that belief into the world. Much of the flotsom and jetsam that inform our realities have been shaped by those who manipulate that knowledge.

Part of what seems to be occuring now is a deconstruction of the eroneous realities we've come to accept.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/30/wuspols130.xml

Senior Democrats mull Al Gore's nomination

By Tim Shipman in Washington Last Updated: 2:23am BST 30/03/2008

Plans for Al Gore to take the Democratic presidential nomination as the saviour of a bitterly divided party are being actively discussed by senior figures and aides to the former vice-president.

The bloody civil war between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has left many Democrats convinced that neither can deliver a knockout blow to the other and that both have been so damaged that they risk losing November's election to the Republican nominee, John McCain."

The Byrd relative mentioned has to be anonymous but is taking on a more local-to-national role building over the next 2-3 years. Really good person.

Here's a good site re the Fed Reserve, kids:
http://www.fdrs.org/banking_history.html
On Sunday, December 23, 1913, two days before Christmas, while most of Congress was on vacation, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. Wilson would later express profound regret over his tragic decision, stating:

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world - no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

Less than one year later Congress declared the 16th Amendment as having been ratified, although it wasn't, creating the Internal Revenue Service which became the de-facto collection agency for the Federal Reserve System. Its only duty was to tax the income of citizens to make the interest payments for the U.S. Government loans that would soon follow.

By November 16, 1914 the Reserve Bank Organization Committee had selected twelve cities throughout the U.S. as sites for regional Reserve Banks, the existence of which served to conceal the fact that there was now a United States Central Bank. The Federal Reserve System then began operations just as European hostilities erupted into World War

FR born 12-23-1913 6:02pm Washington, dc.
Check it's solar return for 2012 in particular in that slot once again after the next election. There's lots with progressions and successive returns that suggest a ravenous shove at that time. That's the pivot for what happens in the u.s. for a long, long time. Good time to pay attention.

Does anyone remember the site of the lady that does a lot of financial astrology? Her photo is on her home page.
I'm attempting to confirm the time 602pm for the fed reserve if anyone knows an alternative.
(astrodatabank uses 12nn so that's no good).
Thanks!

Okay- I have another "birthdate" for the Fed and it is 11/16/1914 in Boston,MA. A truly trecherous chart if the intent is to deceive and manipulate and gain the advantage.
By the way I don't mind paying taxes-I am a socialist and I desire to have healthcare and education supported by all of us so that all of us have access to the benefits of progress.
What I object to in this time is the looting and lying by those in command. the utter corruption of our public life.

I don't mind paying taxes either but the process has been so unfair & lopsided from 1986...with draconian additions on a regular basis, courtesy of the neocons/corporatists!
I got a detailed book of rules for sm biz last year. There is actually 1 paragraph stating that it illegal to take "paybacks" The next paragraph instructs you how to pay the tax on them!

clymela, every culture with any age and depth has an internal social net.
The u.s. has a new attitude toward citizens alot like china's (use up/discard).

Now, I thought I had one can of Friskies left for lunch.....

I think the unfairness and lopsidedness is what I mean by "looting and lying". Although now of course things are so beyond being lopsided as the banks dry up the credit and leave millions high and dry while the big banks swoop in and buy up all the foreclosed property. I read somewhere that the head of bankrupt Countryside is forming a mortgage business.

Playing w/Fed reserve chart off & on. Looks actually like they're getting a major shove back 12-13. Not happy campers!
At least we know evil tends to destroy itself without much outside help.

patb, the fdrs.org site is highly interesting. Tracing the lending roots to a CENTURIES old system sheds light on the tryst and lineage of power, albeit temporal.

I, for one, sure'd like to hear more specifics about what you are seeing in that chart!

Speaking of the Federal Reserve...

http://tinyurl.com/272wh3

Bush seeks financial regulation overhaul

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Sat Mar 29, 11:00 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the way the government regulates the nation's financial services industry from banks and securities firms to mortgage brokers and insurance companies.

The plan would give major new powers to the Federal Reserve, according to a 22-page executive summary obtained by The Associated Press.

The Fed would be given broad authority to oversee financial market stability. That would include new powers to examine the books of any institution deemed to represent a potential threat to the proper functioning of the overall financial system.

The proposal, which will be outlined Monday in a speech by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is certain to set off heated debates within different sectors of the financial services industry and in Congress, where some Democrats are likely to complain that the proposal does not go far enough to crack down on abuses.

more...

PatB, If you want to search the archives you'll find some articles I done in the past on the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve Act was passed at 10:00am on December 23, 1913, the Federal Reserve Bank was passed into being at 6:02pm on the 23rd, passed in secret when most of the law makers had gone home for Christmas. It was a Democratic President who finally let the bars down after decades of the House and Senate fighting what they saw as a disaster, and it has been.

I'm sure if you've done any research on the Federal Reserve you are familiar with Louis McFadden's speech on the floor of the House in June of 1932, I've put this link in articles before but in case it's been missed here it is again. McFadden was one of the first Board Members of the Federal Reserve.

http://www.afn.org/~govern/mcfadden_speech_1932.html

Mike Gravel has just switched to the Libertarian party! He doen't give up easily does he?

Good for him. I hope he gets coverage, he and Ron Paul need to stay out there for aggitation and to make people think. My daughter saw a bumper sticker today that said "9/11 an Inside Job."

Thanks Sally! Quite a read, esp Roosevelt shennanegans 3-5-33.
A few reiterations to what I already posted there, but that's ok.
What is unclear is the where. It was 602p DC correct? That's what I'm using/assuming.

Mike Gravel is a cutie pie. Real & ordinary, who could ask for more.

Talk about odd associations: I kinda wish the Libertarians would change the name of their party, which I associate with some small peculiar religious sect that goes door to door and lives on dried herbs and have nervous tics.

How about Citizen Party or State's Party to appose the current Keg Party.

Holy crap, Sally! How did i miss this? I should have remembered the McFadden speech!

Would you be so kind as to provide a link to the article you posted?

Karen, scroll down to "Show Me the Money" I am sorry I don't have the time to do a complete search, I have hundreds of articles and my time sadly is gobbled up before I have time to turn around. Holding down three jobs, plus playing "Mimi" to the grandchildren, and writing this blog just about takes everything I have. But if you scroll down these articles you will find one of them.

PatB I use the 10:00am time because the signing of the Federal Reserve Act shows the absolute intent of that day and what the Federal Reserve would be. The later time was just a rubber stamp to the 10:00am. I think you could use either of course, only the Moon and Asc. and Mid heaven would be different. I actually go back and forth between both of them but I find the 10:00 am chart to be the most accurate. You might also want to look up the Balfour Agreement of Nov. 2, 1917 signed in London and I did a 12:00 pm time in lieu of an actual time.
Oddly enough they both relate to the same thing and that is the banks drawing down the Money in the US to build up the fund to ensure that a portion of Palestine would eventually become a Jewish State.

Whoops, sorry Karen I forgot to attach the link

http://www.astroworld.us/archives/2003/09/we_are_no_longer_flying_over_t.html

It promises to not be the 'piece of cake' the FReserve may expect with the saturn south node, uranus north node transit, and the vertex of the 10am chart takes a nasty hit in July this year as does the pm vx at 3sag.
Still, 602pm is I think the one that counts.
Note the stock market problem years always seem to coincide with mars retrogrades in solar returns of the Reserve chart. Not surprising is neptune nearby, mars "regressing" back into an addict's stupor of the 12th.
In 1980, when Reaganomics was born, mercury went retrograde in the progressed Reserve Chart 24.47 pisces trining natal neptune at 25.47 cancer. In 2004, it went Direct at 11.05 pisces which NOW applies to a 13 degree saturn in gemini.
FR is losing something quite important to itself, likely will struggle and try to rally over the next four years,
and it well could be, the SR of 2012 has it's mars/pluto OPPOSED by mars/pluto over transiting south node.
Does the addict succumb to death created by it's own hand? It's own worst enemy?
I think the answer is obviously, yes.

Uranus in aries also meets with progressed sun of the Reserve chart from the progressed 7th house, met by squares of the mars/pluto opposing complex.
Even though 1929-33 had these squares it contained through social shagging, it may not work so well this time with such a profitable result for the few given these many new factors described above.

One more re gwpinhead's giving the FR more power. Just compare the charts and you can see at a glance how shakey a proposal that is for the FR, flowers wilt and ships sink when bush passes by, and for the FR, bush's "blighted touch" will do the same for them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/opinion/31krugman.html?th&emc=th
Op-Ed Columnist
The Dilbert Strategy

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 31, 2008

Anyone who has worked in a large organization — or, for that matter, reads the comic strip “Dilbert” — is familiar with the “org chart” strategy. To hide their lack of any actual ideas about what to do, managers sometimes make a big show of rearranging the boxes and lines that say who reports to whom.

Thank you, Sally! and patb, qop, luna and all for posting on the FR dilemna. The movie Devil's Advocate comes to mind in describing the FR's behavior. My thoughts are spiraling and will gain traction throughout the day. Hopefully, i'll be able to articulate them later.

Go, be delightfully humbled and rejoice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LHoyB81LnE

You know, if on some level things are meant to be as they manifest, (which seems to be the case when it comes to astrology - how else to be able to predict?) Then Bush is probably part and parcel of that meaning, or destiny, or The Path. Maybe he's a dark soul who unwittingly and unconsciously does Destiny's work in spite of his best efforts. I've read (in Alice Bailey's work)that the Black Magicians work for themselves and yet do the Creator's work for evolution nonetheless.

I'm not a big believer in the bible, but this is pretty profound

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

From The Holy Bible (King James Version)
Attributed to King Solomon

To everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born, and
a time to die;
a time to plant, and
a time to pluck up
that which is planted;

A time to kill, and
a time to heal;
a time to break down, and
a time to build up;

A time to weep, and
a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and
a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and
a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and
a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and
a time to lose;
a time to keep, and
a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and
a time to sow;
a time to keep silence, and
a time to speak;

A time to love, and
a time to hate;
a time of war; and
a time of peace.

******

Still, it's breathtaking how fast things we think are solid foundations can fall apart.

Al Gore is already 'brokering' behind the scenes, but for the benefit of the planet as opposed to a mere political party

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004316880_gore31.html

Gore begins huge public campaign to go green

By Juliet Eilperin

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public-advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.

The Alliance for Climate Protection's "we" campaign will employ online organizing and television ads on shows ranging from "American Idol" to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

It highlights the extent to which Americans' growing awareness of global warming has yet to translate into policy changes, Gore said last week.

He said the campaign, which he's helping fund, was started in large part because he fears lawmakers aren't willing to curb human-generated emissions linked to climate change.

"This climate crisis is so interwoven with habits and patterns that are so entrenched, the elected officials in both parties are going to be timid about enacting the bold changes that are needed until there is a change in the public's sense of urgency in addressing this crisis," Gore said.

"I've tried everything else I know to try. The way to solve this crisis is to change the way the public thinks about it."

[snip]
"The simple algorithm is this: It's important to change the light bulbs, but it's much more important to change the laws," he said. "The options available to civilization worldwide to avert this terribly destructive pattern are beginning to slip away from us. The path for recovery runs right through Washington, D.C."

advertising

The new effort comes at a time when the three remaining major-party presidential candidates — Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.; and Barack Obama, D-Ill. — have all endorsed federal limits on greenhouse gases, virtually ensuring the next president will offer a sharp break from President Bush's climate policy.

All three have discussed global warming with Gore over the past few months.

more...

Great analysis of Paulson's proposal:

http://tinyurl.com/2mgtqw

Hint: it won't accomplish what needs to be accomplished. But you had already anticipated that, huh?

Wasn't too thrilled with the trained eleohant. Give the morons the wrong idea. WHy would they actually PAY A PERSON to do something an elephant can allegedly do/ I'm not humbled I'm upset! There's enough competition from the untrained kids under 15 these days.

This article hits hardest alert to cellphone users (and it doesn't mean maybe):

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/033108G.shtml

This photo haunts me, it is the face of the true Liberator of Tibet:

http://www.truthout.org/TibetUnderSiege.shtml

There's a saying. It's not our words that move mountains, it's our ACTIONS. It's not high and dry opinions over polite tea, it's ACTION. That is the principal of the "greater vehicle" in vajrayana.
You do what you'd rather not do.

THIS monk, is the man who liberates his country.

Can anyone precisely define "mobile phones"? Is that just cell phones or the portable ones you use off the cradle in your home?

Hey, today is Al Gore's birthday. March 31, 1948, Washington, D.C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore

QOP, Mobile phones are car phones, rather like radios, not cell's. I had a boyfriend in the early 70's that had a mobile phone (his vehicle was also used for emergency transport), a land line looking phone and the car had antenna's.

So much for definitive.

from Raw Story...Obama says....(re Council on Foreign Relations) so everybody STOP this damn conspiracy stuff!
The council has been at the center of several One World Order conspiracies with theorists contending that the group is conspiring to bring about one world government and a North American Union similar to the European Union.

Obama dismissed those notions.

"I see no evidence of this actually taking place," he said. "I think this is something that has been ginned up on certain blogs and the Internet. It was based mostly on the fact that there is this highway being built in Texas that will facilitate transportation more transportation between Mexico and the intercontinental United States and Canada...NAFTA helped to break down barriers, but I don’t think there is some conspiracy to create this one continental government."

qop, to answer your question about handsets you're describing you might have missed this in the body of the article:

"the French government warned against the use of mobile phones, especially by children. Germany also advises its people to minimise handset use, and the European Environment Agency has called for exposures to be reduced"

Morgana, the article does mean cellphones. It's just european terminology.

Patb, thanks for putting the European quote to Qop's question. Makes it rather obvious they're referring to cell phones. America still has mobile phones which are a different beast.

I think the article includes in-home handsets as well. Anything that you walk around with.
They implied those were not as bad as cellphones, but to limit exposure to those as well.
My instincts have told me to stay away from them and so we have been the 'oddballs' who've managed without them. A pager maybe at some point, but cellphones have always creeped me out.

Judigem that is an astonishing absence of comprehension on Obama's part..is ignorance bliss? Guess it spares a person anxiety until reality hits. He can't be serious. Or is he lying? Here comes that anxiety again.

I know that I keep harping but that quote of Obama's sounds right-right for someone who understands who pays the bills and who provides the opportunities. We are still so deep into the evil created in boardrooms and the offices of high placed politicians that we cannot expect much from anyone reaching the highest offices. I don't feel smart saying this I feel very sad actually. I pray that my sorrow turns to action at the right time.

Shy, I have seen some incredible animal videos in the past year: a cat that plays the piano, a great white shark that follows around the man who saved him from entanglement in a net, a lion hug and kiss the woman who nursed it and brought it up (standing up on two legs, over the fence of it's habitat). This elephant video is really breathtaking. As one of the commenters say underneath the video, we have absolutely no idea how intelligent elephants are, not to mention the rest of the animal kingdom (but I know elephants are supposed to be among the most intelligent). Thank you - you're always posting the most awe-inspiring, miraculous stuff that express the true religion.

Interesting find

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080331/ap_on_sc/oldest_gold

Awww, thanks NOLASharon. I thought it was uplifting and we need a touch of that now and again.

Did anyone see Al Gore on 60 minutes on Sunday? Very nice interview with both he and his wife. They both seem very happy, and contented with life, and each other.

Gosh shy, that elephant of brilliance was wonderful. I am in such awe of the sheer beauty of the sweetness of earth's beings. I have a book on "Why Cats Paint", that is just amazing. They paint in an entirely different way, splashes of color applied with a kind of exuberant dance! The elephant is Picasso, with just one continuous line of perfection.

I did enjoy that shy.

Judi, I'm reminded of Sally's words so long ago. I think she said something like, "The same thing, but with a teaspoon of sugar". I have been saying that I have no favorite in this election. Edwards was my choice, and Gore is still my highest hope.

As Judi posted above....

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_no_secret_trade_deals_0331.html

Obama: I don't carry a Council on Foreign Relations card or know any 'special handshake'

Worries about One World Order and a North American Union have been "ginned up by the blogs and the Internet," Sen. Barack Obama told a Lancaster, Pennsylvania audience in a stump speech as he continued his tour through the battleground state.

More at the link....

DRAFT GORE!

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120692447687975721-fGQs8M5zQmY5yC4zV7_MCZUVjmw_20090331.html?mod=rss_free

Felons' Voting Requests Pile Up

MIAMI -- Republican Gov. Charlie Crist went against his party a year ago and made it easier for felons to regain their voting rights. The process has been slow, however -- stirring controversy in a state expected to be closely fought in this fall's elections.

Florida's clemency board has restored voting rights to nearly 75,000 residents. But nearly 96,000 requests are pending, according to information through March 20. Activists say there might be an additional 400,000 people who have been rejected without explanation, making it impossible for them to be reinstated.

The fate of these votes is especially sensitive in Florida, where George W. Bush claimed the presidency by a mere 537 votes in 2000. [WRONG!-MCM] But similar tensions are playing out across the country, with 5.3 million U.S. citizens unable to vote because of felony convictions -- including four million people who are no longer in prison, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.

Maine and Vermont are the only states that allow felons to vote while incarcerated. Thirteen others and the District of Columbia allow inmates to regain the right to vote after their release, according to the Sentencing Project, a Washington advocacy group. Other states limit voting based on factors including the severity of a crime, the completion of probation and the payment of fines.

More at the link....

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20080326_hasen.html

About Face: The Roberts Court Sets the Stage for Shrinking Voting Rights, Putting Poor and Minority Voters Especially In Danger

Oooooh, Cap'n Sally, look what's happening in your neck of the woods:

http://tinyurl.com/2m4bvp

May it prosper and grow and be everywhere.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2527885420080401?sp=true

Some homes worth less than their copper pipes

.......

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN2734577620080327

Copper: The color of tomorrow’s hospitals?

Watching this country, the US with all it's abundance and wealth, implode so needlessly is heartbreaking. It's like watching a teenager who is a talented genius with all the potential for being an outstanding asset to the world become a Meth addict and fall into a black hole, eaten up by pustulent wounds and rotted teeth. The whole world suffers because of such a selfish choice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/30/AR2008033002138.html

States Are Hit Hard by Economic Downturn
Many Cutbacks Felt by Most Needy

NEW YORK -- In Illinois' Cook County, women in poor neighborhoods no longer have access to free mammograms from two mobile vans testing for breast cancer.

In Michigan, hikers will find about 20 campgrounds closed, and scientists are ending their studies of fish populations in the Great Lakes.

In New Jersey, state workers are being laid off, and at least one town is canceling its traditional Fourth of July fireworks.

And in California's San Fernando Valley, Everardo Orozco, 53, who has AIDS, exhausted his medical benefits and can no longer afford the drugs that are keeping him alive.

more...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/usa-2008-the-great-depression-803095.html

USA 2008: The Great Depression

Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis

[snip]
Emblematic of the downturn until now has been the parades of houses seized in foreclosure all across the country, and myriad families separated from their homes. But now the crisis is starting to hit the country in its gut. Getting food on the table is a challenge many Americans are finding harder to meet. As a barometer of the country's economic health, food stamp usage may not be perfect, but can certainly tell a story.

Michigan has been in its own mini-recession for years as its collapsing industrial base, particularly in the car industry, has cast more and more out of work. Now, one in eight residents of the state is on food stamps, double the level in 2000. "We have seen a dramatic increase in recent years, but we have also seen it climbing more in recent months," Maureen Sorbet, a spokeswoman for Michigan's programme, said. "It's been increasing steadily. Without the programme, some families and kids would be going without."

But the trend is not restricted to the rust-belt regions. Forty states are reporting increases in applications for the stamps, actually electronic cards that are filled automatically once a month by the government and are swiped by shoppers at the till, in the 12 months from December 2006. At least six states, including Florida, Arizona and Maryland, have had a 10 per cent increase in the past year.

more...